TheCable

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, says the Imota rice mill will begin operation by the first quarter of 2022. 

The governor called on contractors handling the project to ensure that by the proposed date, the mill commences operation.

Sanwo-Olu said this on Friday while on a visit to assess the project at the Imota area of Ikorodu, two years after his first visit.

He said that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, the 32-metric tons per hour rice mill being constructed by the Lagos state government would begin operations before the end of the first quarter of 2022.

Sanwo-Olu said the facility would be put through a pre-production test run before the end of March in 2022, after which full production capacity would be activated.

“We are pretty much excited with how far we have gone with the construction, and we are believing that all the contractors are working collaboratively to ensure that the deadlines are met,” he said.

According to him, the project was delayed due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the new deadline remained sacrosanct. 

“What is left is to see how quickly we can ramp up work on the storage facility, which has the capacity to take production up to three to six months,” he said. 

“There are 16 silos which have a combined capacity of 40,000 metric tons. Each has 2,500 metric tons. The two sections of the silos are at about 85 and 70 percent completion.” 

Sanwo-Olu said that construction work on the storage facilities would be completed in the next four weeks, followed by a major cleanup across the major site in preparation for production test run.

He said that full production of the facility would significantly reduce the prices of rice and pressure to purchase the commodity.

The governor said the state is also developing an industrial park adjacent to the mill.

He said the industrial park will have amenities that will ensure booming businesses and bring returns on investment to business owners. 

The rice mill has been built with a capacity to produce 2.8 million bags of 50kg bags of rice yearly while generating 1,500 direct jobs and 254,000 indirect jobs.