The Nigerian government has approved a loan of N3.38bn to support the potato value chain in Plateau State.
The approval was given at Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council presided over by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, who was one of the ministers that briefed State House correspondents after the meeting, said Plateau State government would provide N595 million as counterpart funding while the rest would be borrowed.
She added that the interest rate on the loan would be one percent per annum with a repayment period of 25 years and five years moratorium.
“It’s not a new loan; we canceled it and redirected the money to a request by Plateau State government to support the potato value chain,” Adeosun said, explaining that the rationale for the loan was that “Plateau accounts for 95% of Nigeria’s potato production.”
She said: “From Plateau, potato is exported to Ghana, Niger, Chad and other countries. Despite that there are huge post-harvest losses, there is not enough storage, there is more that we could be doing with Plateau potato.”
According to Adeosun, the AfDB has come out with a comprehensive programme for the Plateau State potato value chain that would affect over 100,000 families engaged in potato farming.
“It is expected to create 60,000 jobs in the potato value chain, everything from processing, storage, replacement of current inputs and indeed exports,” the finance minister said.
17 local government areas in Plateau State are expcted to benefit from the programme and “we expected it to be a significant job creator,” the minister added.
She said part of what the loan would be spent on was the construction of roads to enable potato farmers to transport their produce from their farms to the cities for the market.
Ratification
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, said the Federal Executive Council approved two ratification memoranda of road work that had to be done under emergency circumstances.
Mr. Fashola said the first was the Abuja-Kaduna Highway, where emergency work was done following the closure of the runway of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, which necessitated the diversion of traffic to Kaduna.
“At that time, we didn’t have council approval; what we had was an anticipatory presidential approval as prescribed under the law for emergency work, which is prescribed under the law,” Fashola said.
He said the second approval was with respect to the Apapa Wharf Road in Lagos, South West Nigeria.
The Works Minister said the recent Presidential Order for a 24-hour port put pressure on the road.
He said the Apapa Wharf Road was handed over in June this year, under public private partnership arrangement, between Julius Berger, Flour Mills, Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA and the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing.
According to Fashola, the cost implication for the 165km Abuja-Kaduna Highway was N1.58billion, while the Apapa Wharf Road project would cost N4.13bn.
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