Abuja — The Federal Government yesterday said it spends a total sum of N30 billion annually to finance the importation of sugar into the country.

This was made known by the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Ms. Josephine Tapgun during a Stakeholders' Forum to consider the review of tariff on Sugar importation into the country.

She also said Nigerians consume 1.3 million tons of sugar annually, adding that the present situation shows that the country presently produces less than 10 per cent of the national consumption of the product.

According to her, this has been a source of concern to the Federal Government. She revealed that while Nigeria consumed 43,000 tons in 1955, she consumes 1.3 million tons today.

"This is despite the fact that Nigeria has a high potential in terms of land, water and human resources to produce enough sugar for local consumption and for export," she lamented.

While acknowledging the importance attached to the meeting, she said the Federal Government is studying proposals presented by the National Sugar Development Council on Sugar Master plan with a view for fiscal policy amendments for the sub sector towards its achievement of 70 percent self sufficiency in sugar production by 2020 and a consideration of price of unfortified, refined sugar in Nigeria.

She said "Against the backdrop of the Vision 2020 dreams and the need to combat the economic challenges of high unemployment, food insufficiency, power and energy shortages, the need to harness the potential of the sugar industry has become imperative."

Tapgun added that government is also exploring other strategies to boost local sugar production at least in the short term. One of the fiscal policy measures she said will be presented to all the stakeholders by the NSDC during forum.

She explained that the intention in all these is to stimulate new backwards integration projects and increased investment in integrated sugar projects like the Savannah Sugar company in Numan.

In his remark, the Executive Secretary, NSDC, Mr. Usman Bello the Council was established in 1993 to help stimulate the activities in the sugar sub sector to enable Nigeria achieve at least 70 percent of her requirement for the commodity at the earliest possible time. Bello stated that the Council's source of funding comes from the payment of 10 percent levy on all types of imported sugar which is 10 percent of Cost Imported Freight (CIF) that serves as the major source of fund for financing the budget of the Council.

He said the combined capacity of 4 of the government owned sugar companies could only satisfy about 5 percent of the national requirement while the remaining 95 percent of refined white sugar was imported.

Bello said there has been a downward slide in the receipts on sugar levy account due mainly to the fact that over 96 percent of all imports now are raw sugar. He said "It is alarming to note that no receipts have been made to this account in the first half of this year." He said if this continues, Council will have little or no fund to pursue its statutory roles in developing the sector.

To move the sector forward, Bello proposed the prohibition of importation of refined white sugar and a review of total waivers for imported raw sugar. According to him this is necessary to achieve massive job creation and enhancement of rural standard nationwide.