The Federal Government has declared that it is proposing a new fertilizer Bill that sets seven years jail term for fertilizer adulteration in the country.
The new law when operational is expected to sanitize the production of fertilizer in the country and reduce its adulteration.
Akinwumi Adesina, minister of agriculture and rural development, disclosed this while speaking to State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Adesina said the Bill is being proposed to reposition Nigeria as a major fertilizer hub in the West African sub-region as the Economic Community of West African States plan to ensure unrestricted flow of fertilizer across the region.
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“You have a situation where nutrient composition is actually questionable over time. We had challenges with adulteration, so it is very imperative that we protect the farmers to make sure that they actually get good fertilizers.
“The draft bill is looking at the issue of quality control in the fertilizer sector. As you know that since we started the liberalization of the fertilizer sector, there’s been quite a lot of private sector engagement in this particular space. We have noticed overtime that we had challenges in terms of adulteration of fertilizer in the system”.
He noted that Nigeria stands to make huge benefits from the proposed law as Dangote has concluded plans to invest $3.5 billion, and Notore, $1.3 billion along side investors from across the globe.
This is just as the FEC on Wednesday said it has begun consideration of the draft white paper report on the recommendation of the Orosanye’s report on the rationalization of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government.
Orosanye committee had looked at a total of 541 parastatals while the white paper committee accepted 321, indicating that government may have concluded that 220 may be scrapped.
The Steve Oransanye committee had recommended the reduction of the existing 263 government’s statutory agencies in the country to 161.
The committee had recommended the abolition of 38 agencies, merger of 52 and reversion of 14 agencies to departments in the relevant ministries.
