The Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), also known as the Sovereign Wealth Fund, has resuscitated 11 fertiliser-blending plants across the country, which will substantially brought down the price of fertiliser, ended fertiliser subsidy and ensured the availability of the commodity.

The Fund’s Managing Director, Uche Orji disclosed this in Abuja on Monday while receiving the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who paid a courtesy visit to the Authority.

“We have delivered over six million bags of NPK 20:10:10 at 30 percent below the market price without subsidy. In the process of that, we have also created over 50,000 jobs. We have rehabilitated 11 blending plants that had either been under capacity or moribund,” he said.

He said six other moribund fertiliser-blending plants across the country were at various stages of rehabilitation and would come on board by the end of the year.

Orji said through that intervention, the Fund had saved the government over N50 billion in subsidy this year, based on the fact that the government used to subsidise fertiliser to the tune of N6,000 per bag.

The NSIA boss said the fertiliser initiative of the Authority also assisted the government to conserve foreign exchange through the substitution of 65 percent components of the fertiliser with local content.

According to him, the Fund eliminated fertiliser subsidy and middlemen in the distribution process by putting whistle blower telephone numbers on every bag to guard against arbitrary increase in the price of the commodity.

While commending the Fund for its intervention in the critical sectors of the economy, the Minister said that the present administration had succeeded in breaking the jinx in fertiliser supply to farmers.

“You have done three major things here. One is that you have crashed the price of fertiliser and this in itself is very significant because what we have today is that, for the cost of one bag of fertiliser, you can get two bags.

“When you now look at the improvement in the type of fertiliser that you are now making available, it has helped us to increase yield from about two metric tonnes per hectare to seven metric tonnes, and I think in some areas up to 11. More remarkable to me is that we have been able to demystify the fertiliser conundrum,” he said.

The Minister said the intervention by the Fund had also eliminated corruption and scandals in the procurement of fertiliser.

He observed that the interventions and the laudable efforts that the Fund was making, especially in the area of agriculture, infrastructure and health, were ground-breaking and pledged to partner with the Fund in order to publicise its activities.

•Photo shows Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed (second right), in a group photograph with the management of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority when the Minister visited the corporate headquarters of the Authority in Abuja on Monday.

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