Dangote tomato plant, when re-opened, will reduce tomato post-harvest loss estimated at 40 percent, Sani Dangote, vice president, Dangote Industries, said during a visit to the company’s facility by Yemi Osibanjo, Nigeria’s vice president.
The one-day visit to the plant was part of a nationwide inspection of some selected manufacturing centres by the Vice President to enable him have first-hand information on the challenges confronting players in the industrial sector.
The Vice President, who was accomplished by the minister of trade, industry, and investment, arrived the plant at about 1pm Monday and was taken on a tour on the facility by Sani Dangote.
Briefing the Vice President, Dangote said the plant, the largest in West Africa, required 1,200 metric tons of fresh tomatoes daily, which is equivalent to 40 trucks each with 30 metric tons capacity on a daily basis.
According to Dangote, the plant when fully operational will indirectly provide means of livelihood for over 100,000 farmers, and one of the multiplier effects will be providing jobs for transport service delivery, labour for loading and off loading, packaging and distribution, among other.
He said the establishment of the plant would help reduce the current losses of about 40 percent of tomatoes harvested in the country as a result of poor post-harvest handlings, which experts put at several billions of naira per year.
The Vice President concluded the tour without making any comment on his observation, and then proceeded to inspect some tomato growing farms on the Kadawa tomato growing belt of the state.
Speaking on the sidelines of the visit, Abdulkarim Kaita, who is the managing director of the company, used the occasion to call on the Federal Government to ban the continuous importation of tomato paste.
Kaita said the call became necessary, as the importation of sub-standard paste, particularly from China, had remained the biggest threat to the growth and development of indigenous tomato paste industry.
In addition to the ban, he also wants the Federal Government to fast track current steps taken to address the challenge of electricity outages being experienced by manufacturers in the country.
He said before the temporary shut down of the company as a result of raw-material shortages, the plant had been operating on its own alternative power generation plant, costing the company several millions of naira daily.
“As a way of meeting the increasing requirement of tomatoes by the plant, we have embarked on the introduction of new varieties of tomatoes for cultivation by our farmers; the varieties being introduced are suitable cultivation at all seasons.
“The introduction of the new varieties of tomatoes are expected to go a long way in addressing the challenge of shortages of raw material and prevent future shutting down of the plant,” he said.
