The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, on Saturday, dismissed the claim by the North-East Caucus of the National Assembly that the region was excluded from the $530m Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone programme of the Federal Government.

Last Thursday, the North-East lawmakers raised concerns over the exclusion of its region from the SAPZ programme, saying it was unfair for the country?s biggest livestock hub to be left out of such an initiative.

The Caucus, which comprised senators and members of the House of Representatives from Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe, also begged President Bola Tinubu to address the issue for the sake of fairness and equity.

They made the appeal at the end of an emergency closed-door meeting held at the National Assembly Complex in Abuja.

However, in a statement issued in Abuja, Kyari debunked the claim, saying three states from the Northeast, namely Gombe, Borno and Bauchi, have expressed their interest in participating in the second phase of the programme.

The minister further recalled that at the commencement of the first phase of the programme, only eight states indicated interest in participating.

He said, ?We are glad that they acknowledged the very innovative nature of the SAPZ as a groundbreaking change in the agricultural development agenda and priority of President Bola Tinubu. The SAPZ programme was launched in 2022 based on its conceptual design of Phase One in 2019.

?This project is a Federal Government enabled initiative with subscription by the State Governments of the Federation. Therefore, all State Governments were expected to individually Express Interest in the programme.?

On the selection process, the minister explained that in 2019, each state governor was notified in writing to express interest with an attached eligibility criteria that would enable them to participate in phase one of the programme.

Kyari said upon receipt of their expression of interest, a joint team comprising the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Federal Ministry of Finance, and the African Development Bank conducted a mission to each of the states to verify the fulfilment of the eligibility criteria as a selection process.

He added that at this stage, only eight states, namely Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun, Imo, Cross River, and Federal Capital Territory, were qualified to participate.

?We reviewed the development potential of this programme under the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr President and decided that no state will be left behind. Consequently, the Vice President?s first international mission was to the Rome Food System Summit, where he galvanised more funding to accommodate more states.

?He also embarked on a second mission to the World Food Price meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, USA, where he obtained a commitment of one billion USD from the President of the African Development Bank for the sole purpose of bringing on board more states,? he noted.

The minister explained further that phase two of the programme had already commenced in earnest, adding that he had personally communicated to all the states that are not in phase one, notifying them of the programme.

He added, ?Consequently, we have received Expressions of Interest from 27 states, but only 10 fully complied with the eligibility criteria, which includes three States from the North-East namely Gombe Borno and Bauchi States for the first tranche of phase two, as they will be three tranches of onboarding states in the second phase.

?So, the sweeping statement by the Caucus that the North East was completely excluded is not correct. We are also confident that more states will do what is necessary to fulfil the eligibility criteria to enable us to capture them in the second tranche of funding of Phase Two.

?I therefore also want to appeal to the legislators, especially the North East NASS Caucus, to appeal to the other governors of the North East, namely Taraba, Yobe and Adamawa, to reinvigorate their interest in the programme and to ensure they fulfil the eligibility criteria for the second phase.? (The PUNCH)

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