NSDC targets $1bn investment to cut sugar imports

L-R: The Chairperson, Government Liaison Committee, Chartered Institute of Directors, Mrs Fatima Mede, and the Executive Secretary/CEO, National Sugar Development Council, Mr Kamar Bakrin, during a courtesy visit by CIoD to the NSDC boss

The National Sugar Development Council is seeking to attract investment into Nigeria’s sugar industry through a $1bn engineering, procurement and construction-plus-finance agreement with SINOMACH of China and a N10bn Sugar Project Acceleration Fund established with the Bank of Industry.

The Executive Secretary/CEO of the Council, Mr Kamar Bakrin, disclosed this when he received members of the Abuja Chapter of the Chartered Institute of Directors on a courtesy visit to the NSDC headquarters in Abuja, according to a statement from the NSDC on Sunday.

Nigeria consumes about 1.8 million metric tonnes of sugar annually, with an estimated $1bn spent each year on imports. Bakrin said the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan 2.0 was designed to increase local production and retain more of the value from the domestic market within the Nigerian economy.

He said the sector’s challenge was not a lack of policy but poor implementation. “We don’t lack policy. What we have struggled with is world-class execution,” Bakrin said, stressing that the gap was not a farming problem but a governance problem.

He described NSMP 2.0 as an “acceleration mandate” aimed at shortening Nigeria’s path to self-sufficiency and delivering about two million metric tonnes of locally produced sugar.

Bakrin said the council’s strategy extended beyond sugar production to the wider industrial use of sugarcane. “We have been blessed with a crop that is one of the most generous God has ever made. From sugarcane you can get sugar, you can get ethanol, you can get animal feed, you can produce power. Our job is to build a bio-industrial ecosystem around it — this is not just about producing a commodity,” he said.

On enforcement, Bakrin said the Backward Integration Programme had been rebuilt around four principles — qualify, reward, verify and enforce. He said companies seeking import quotas must demonstrate commitment to backward integration, while major refiners would be required to provide audited production commitments tied to their quotas.

He said the Council would use satellite imagery and field inspections to verify activities at project sites, reducing reliance on self-reporting.

Bakrin said financing remained a challenge in the sector because of the limited number of bankable projects capable of attracting capital. He said the N10bn Sugar Project Acceleration Fund, established with the Bank of Industry, would finance feasibility studies and project preparation to turn greenfield sites into investment-ready projects.

• Anambra deepens digital push, targets SME formalisation
• Investors show strong appetite for BOI’s N250bn bond
• FG, Seamfix partner to digitise cooperative sector

The projects would then feed into the $1bn EPC-plus-finance agreement signed with SINOMACH of China, providing a channel for construction and financing once projects were prepared. The council is also engaging Afreximbank and partnering with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum to accelerate the development of sugar estates across the country.

Bakrin highlighted the Sugarcane Outgrower Development Programme as part of efforts to involve smallholder farmers in the sector’s growth. Under NSMP 2.0, he said every sugar estate would be required to reserve land for outgrowers and invest part of its capital in host communities through social infrastructure, employment and physical infrastructure.

Drawing on the council’s engagements with Brazilian authorities and other sugar-producing countries, Bakrin said Nigeria could learn from Brazil’s institutional approach to the industry.

“Brazil did not win by planting better cane. They won by building institutions that compounded productivity for years, for decades,” he said.

He said the council was developing Standard Operating Procedures for its critical support functions using Six Sigma methodology to establish standardised and repeatable processes.

“I hold a very strong conviction that the difference between the countries that industrialised and those that did not rarely has to do with the quality of their plants. It is the quality of their institutions,” the Executive Secretary emphasised.

Bakrin invited the Chartered Institute of Directors to contribute to governance across sugar estates, mills and outgrower companies, as well as to policy discussions aimed at attracting long-term capital.

Earlier, the leader of the CIoD delegation, Mrs Fatima Nana Mede, commended the Council’s leadership on reforms in the sugar industry and its efforts towards self-sufficiency. She affirmed the institute’s readiness to collaborate with the Council in areas of mutual interest to support the advancement of the sector.