The President, Fertiliser Producers and Suppliers Association of Nigeria (FEBSAN), Thomas Etuh has said that Presidential Fertiliser Initiative has eliminated subsidy on fertiliser by saving at least N60billion in budgetary provisions in fertiliser supply for 2017.
He also said the initiative “would boost foreign exchange savings of $200 million by maximising local content.”
Recall that the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative was borne following the signing of a bilateral agreement by FEPSAN and OCP Morocco during the visit of the King of Morroco to Nigeria in December 2016.
The agreement led to the setting up of the Presidential committee for the initiative chaired by the governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji
Muhammed Abubakar with members drawn from FEPSAN, ministries of agriculture, Finance, CBN, Office of the NSA, Nigerian Sovereign Investment, respectively.
Speaking while leading a delegation of journalists and the
association’s monitoring team to the Fertiliser and Chemicals Limited Company in Kaduna, the President said the initiative is a child borne out of expediency.
“ This idea came out of the need to solve the problem of perennial
unavailability and unaffordability of fertiliser and more recently the sharp increase in the price of NPK fertiliser which reached an all-time high of between N9000 and N10,000 in 2016,” he said.
Assuring that the Initiative would crash the price of fertiliser from its current price to N5,500 only, he said “the Initiative would
further enhance food supply through the expected increase in food production.”
Speaking on the immediate benefits of the programme, Mr Etuh said, “the initiative will avail Nigerian farmers one million metric tonnes of NPK fertiliser for 2017 wet season farming and 500,000 metric tonnes for 2017 dry season farming.
“It would eliminate subsidy on fertiliser by saving at least N60billion in Budgetary Provisions for fertiliser supply for 2017, foreign exchange savings of $200million by maximising local content and enhance food supply through increase in food production,” he added.