We shut tomato processing plant due to lack of forex, says Dangote official
Edwin Devakumar, a senior executive with Dangote Group, says the conglomerate had to shut down its tomato processing factory due to lack of foreign exchange for raw material import.
In a interview with Reuters, Devakumar, said the Dangote group has been cutting down its operations across board due to lack of necessary foreign exchange.
“Where the foreign exchange is not available, we are cutting down our operations. For example … we had a tomato-based processing plant, we have shut it down,” Devakumar said.
Abdulladir Kaita, managing director of the company, however disclosed that the plant, which is located Kadawa, Kura local government area of Kano state, would be returning to production in February 2017.
Kaita said that the company had to suspend production when most of the tomato farms in about five states were affected by a pest that destroyed all the tomato species.
“We expect that tomato farmers would have produced enough for the company to process, hence our decision to resume production in February,” he said.
According to him, many tomato farmers at the Kadawa, Kura, Garun-Malam and Hadeja-Jama’are irrigation sites are expected to produce enough for the company to process.
“We deliberately decided to resume production in February because we don’t want to create scarcity of the commodity,” Kaita said.
People and especially the media should stop confusing the Dangote tomato processing plant in Kano with the one in Ogun state. The cable painted picture of contradiction between Devakumar Edwin and AAbdulkadir Kaita whereas Edwin was referring to the Ogun plant which imports concentrated tomato paste as its raw material, Kaita was referring to the Kano plant which produces concentrated tomato paste from locally sourced fresh tomatoes. If all goes well, the Ogun plant will be re-openef as it will no longer need to import tomato paste but rather source it from Kano.