The management of Dangote Group has revealed why it temporarily shut down its newly established multi-billion Naira Tomato Paste Production Plant in the commercial city of Kano.
The company disclosed that one of the reasons the plant was closed down temporarily was because of the low quality of the locally grown tomatoes, which make it ‘un-sweet-able’ for production.
The other reason, according to the company, was the outbreak of ‘Tomato Absoluta Tula’ disease which makes it difficult to source the commodity from farm gates for the purpose of production.
Mansur Ahmed, Executive Director, Stakeholders’ Management and Corporate Communications, who made this disclosure, while responding to questions from journalists in Kano, said the company was doing everything possible to re-open the tomato plant soon.
As a way forward towards reopening the plant, Ahmed hinted that the management of the plant is spear heading the cultivation of brands of tomatoes that can lead to ‘sweet-able’ paste production in the country.
He stated that the land for the cultivation of the commodity was acquired in Kadawa tomato growing belt of Kano, as well as in other northern states where tomato is being grown on a massive scale.
“In responses to several enquires we have been receiving from concerned stakeholders who want to know why we have to shut down our newly established tomato paste plant in Kano, my response is that the reasons have to do with the low quality of the tomatoes being grown in the country.
“In the course of turning the locally grown tomatoes into paste, we observed that it contained too much water, which makes it very difficult to be turned into paste, and while the company was still trying to make do with the tomato, we had the ‘Absoluta Tula’ outbreak, and we have no option than to close down the plant to prevent us running at loss.
“Considering the huge amount of money required to keeping the plant running per day and with the situation we have at hand, we believe closing it down temporarily was the best option.
“In order to meet the challenge at hand, we have resolved to start growing the kind of tomatoes that is good enough for paste, to this end, we have started acquiring land for that purpose in Kano, and other states in the northern parts of the country, where tomatoes is grown on a large scale” he explained.
The tomato plant which is the first of its kind in West Africa sub-region is situated in Kadawa, a tomato growing belt community in the outskirt of Kano metropolis.
The plant which is fully operational is to leverage on the huge tomato fruits being grown in area, and is expected to reduce the over 1.2 million metric of processed tomatoes being imported into the country annually.
BusinessDay `s finding indicates that all machineries of the production lines in the plant have been installed, but scarcity of raw tomatoes, and the outbreak of Absoluta Tula disease is delaying the functionality of the plant.
The area worse hit by the outbreak of the pest disease is Kano state, which findings indices produces 70 percent of the total tomato being cultivated in the country.
Nigeria is the hub of tomato production in the West Africa Sub-Region; however, about 40% of the total tomatoes being cultivated in the country is lost due to poor post-harvest handling, which necessaited the establishment of the plant.
With the outbreak of the tomato disease, both the Federal Government, and Kano state government, set up some committees to come out solutions to the outbreak, but until now the existence of committees remains a mere paper work.
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