TheCable

The Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) says it has invested N107 billion in the presidential fertiliser initiative (PFI) since its inception in 2017.

The authority, on Thursday, said an estimated N114 billion would be invested in 2020 on items that cover raw materials, logistics, contract blending costs by third party blenders among others.

Reeling out achievements of the programme, it said the initiative has also provided an estimated 100,000 jobs outside of farming in areas like logistics, haulage/transportation, ports management, bag manufacturing, industrial warehousing, and micro-economic activities in and around the blending plants.

It also said 31 fertiliser blending plants have been revived since 2017 and foreign exchange that would have been expended on fertiliser importation saved.

The presidential fertiliser initiative started in 2017 after Nigeria and Morocco signed a three-year bilateral agreement to supply di-ammonium phosphate for NPK 20:10:10 fertiliser production.

The NSIA was appointed managers of the project with a mandate of ensuring accountability and transparency.

According to the authority, all operations are audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), periodically reviewed by the accountant-general of the federation and audited records are included in the NSIA financial statements published on its website.

The NSIA also said only 37 percent of the raw materials are imported (DAP from Morocco and muriate of potash from Russia) while the remaining 67 percent (urea, limestone granules) are sourced locally.

To prevent adulteration, it said the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) in Zaria and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan were contracted to carry out periodic testing and quality assurance while a joint security task force which is superintended by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) monitors movement, storage and general handling to prevent pilferage.

Accredited distributors previously sold a 50kg bag of NPK 20:10:10 fertiliser at N5,500 before President Muhammadu Buhari directed that it be sold for N5,000 to reduce the cost of farm inputs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sales collections are also received through partner commercial banks of blending plant and then transferred to the NSIA’s treasury single account (TSA).