NSIA resuscitates 11 Fertiliser Blending Firms

The Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), also known as the Sovereign Wealth Fund, has resuscitated 11 fertilizer blending plants

across the country, which substantially brought down the price of
fertilizer, ended fertilizer subsidy and ensured the availability of the commodity.

The Fund’s Managing Director Uche Orji disclosed this in Abuja on Monday, while receiving the Minister of Information and Culture,
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who paid a courtesy visit to the Authority.

“We have delivered over 6 million bags of NPK 20:10:10 at 30% below
the market price without subsidy. In the process of that, we have also created over 50,000 jobs. We have rehabilitated 11 blending plants
that had either been under capacity or moribund,” he said.

He said six other moribund fertilizer blending plants across the country are at various stages of rehabilitation and will come on board
by the end of the year.

Orji said through this intervention, the Fund has saved the government over N50 billion in subsidy this year, based on the fact
that the government used to subsidize fertilizer to the tune of N6,000 per bag.

The NSIA boss said the fertilizer initiative of the Authority also assisted the government to conserve foreign exchange through the
substitution of 65% components of the fertilizer with local content.

According to him, the Fund eliminated fertilizer subsidy and middlemen
in the distribution process by putting whistle blower telephone numbers on every bag to guard against arbitrary increase in the price
of the commodity.

In his remarks,Lai Mohammed said the present administration considers Agriculture central to the on going economic diversification plans.

Under the Presidential Fertiliser initiative,the NSIA and it’s partners are helping to manage the isse of food security by addressing the pricing model of product’

He adds that the federal government is pelased with the nature of strategic investments by the Authority in key sectors of the economy.To aid your programmes, we will continue to strengthen our policies to improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria and thereby enable your agency attract more investors.

While commending the Fund for its intervention in the critical sectors of the economy, the Minister said the present administration has
succeeded in breaking the jinx in fertilizer supply to farmers.

“You have done three major things here. One is that you have crashed
the price of fertilizer and this in itself is very significant because what we have today is that for the cost of one bag of fertilizer, you

can get two bags of fertilizer.

“When you now look at the improvement in the type of fertilizer that you are now making available, it has helped us to increase yield from
about 2 metric tonnes per hectare to 7 metric tonnes and I think in some areas up to 11. More remarkable to me is that we have been able to demystify the fertilizer conundrum,” he said.

Mohammed said the intervention by the Fund has also eliminated corruption and scandals in the procurement of fertilizer.

BusinessDay

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