The Federal Government has concluded plans to expand the coverage of Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) with a $1billion loan facility from the African Development Bank (AfDB), extending the programme to more States of the Federation.
This is as Abubakar Kyari, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, dismissed claims of exclusion of some States raised by members of the National Assembly Caucus of the North-East when he briefed the Media on Saturday in Abuja.
The Minister recalled that following the current administration review of the development potentials of the SAPZ programme under the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu, saying the Federal Executive Council had decided that no State would be left behind.
“Consequently, the Vice President’s first international mission was to Rome Food System Summit, where he galvanised more funding to enable us to take 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 1 billion USD from the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) for the sole purpose of bringing on board more States”, the Minister explained.
The Minister recalled that the SAPZ programme launched in 2022 based on its conceptual design of Phase 1 in 2019, “is a Federal Government-enabled initiative with subscription by the State Governments of the Federation. Therefore, all State Governments were expected to individually express their interest in the programme”.
Presenting the steps taken to arrive at the Programme, he said, “For the selection process in 2019, each state governor was notified in writing to express interest with an attached eligibility criteria that will enable them to participate in phase 1 of the programme”.
He noted that “on receipt of their expression of interest, a joint team comprising the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Federal Ministry of Finance, and the Development Finance Institution, in this case the African Development Bank conducted a mission to each of the States to verify the fulfillment of the eligibility criteria as a selection process. This stage got 8 States that qualified, namely: Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun, Imo, Cross River, and FCT.”
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He added that “the SAPZ programme is a Subsidiary Loan Agreement Programme, where the Federal Government onboards the obtained loans to the State for the implementation of the programme.
“Considering this is a loan, it is solely the discretion of the State to participate or not, and we have cases where States have not expressed interest.”
On the Phasing of the Project, Kyari noted that “the overall policy directive of Mr. President is that all States must be brought on board. However, this will be in phases. We are convinced that as other states see the actuality of this project, they get more interested and therefore express their interest in being the first stage of being onboarded.”
He added that Phase 2 of the Programme had already commenced, saying, “I have personally communicated to all the States that are not in phase 1 in writing, notifying them of the programme and to express interest.
“Consequently, we have received Expressions of Interest from 27 States but only 10 States 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 2 as there will be 3 tranches of onboarding States in the phase 2.
“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 the needful to fulfill the eligibility criteria to enable us to capture them in the second tranche funding of Phase 2. 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 Minister stated that the President, for the agricultural sector, had approved the Presidential Food System Coordination Council under the leadership of the Vice President, Kashim Shettima with the inclusion of governors from the six geo-political zones and other critical stakeholders across the zones
Reaffirming that the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda is anchored on the need for inclusivity, he added that beyond the SAPZ Programme, the Federal Government had continued to provide targeted support for farmers in the North-East and across the country.
