Sugar manufacturers in the country are still struggling with their backward integration programmes amidst likelihood that the massive drop in the volume of output three years ago may sustain a recovery trend began in 2014.
Output rose to 15,000 metric tonnes (MT) per annum in the latest report up to 2015 after a huge plunge three years ago from 35,000MT they had recorded five years ago. Top operators in the industry are Dangote Sugar, BUA Sugar and Golden Sugar, a subsidiary of Flour Mills.
LEADERSHIP learnt that the specific incentives government had put in place for investors in the industry include zero per cent duty on machinery and spare parts imported, five years tax holiday for sugarcane value chain, outright ban on the importation of refined sugar in retail packs and 30 per cent tax credit on the cost of provision of critical infrastructure by sugar-cane-to-sugar project investors.
It was further gathered that under the National Sugar Master Plan (NSMP) the target is to produce an annual volume of 1.8 million tonnes of sugar; 161.2 million litres of ethanol, 4000MW of electricity, 1.6 million tonnes of animal feeds, 37,378 permanent jobs and 79,803 seasonal jobs; save the economy $416 million (N68.6 billion) in foreign exchange over a ten-year period.
However, a five-year data (2011-2015) obtained from the National Sugar Development Council, NSDC, revealed that local production which peaked at 35,000MT in 2011 dropped significantly to 10,000MT in 2013 before rebounding to 12,345MT and 15,000MT in 2015.