All is set for Vice President Yemi Osibanjo’s visit to Edo on Tuesday, to inaugurate the 60,000 metric tonnes per annum Edo Fertilizer Company’s plant in Auchi.
Alhaji Sadiq Kassim, Coporate Affairs Manager of Wacot, the company managing the plant, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday the plant would create about 500 direct jobs for indigenes of Edo.
He said explained that Wacot rehabilitated the state-owned fertiliser company under the presidential fertilizer initiative to boost farming nationwide.
“We are managing the plant under a long term lease with Edo government,” he said.
Kassim, who did not disclose the company’s financial involvement.
“All I can say is that we plan extension of the project in few years to scale up the capacity and turn over which will be in billions of naira.”
He commended the people of the community whom he described as “very homely and accommodating’’.
“Our relationship with the host community is absolutely fantastic. We have made extensive contact with the people who are mainly farmers; they are homely and very accommodating towards us,” he said
Governor Godwin Obaseki in January visited the site of the plant after signig an MoU with management of Wacot and expressed optimism that the plant would become functional in no time.
The Edo Fertilizer Company, Auchi, was commissioned on March 22, 2003 by the Mr. Lucky Igbinedion’s admistration, but had not been functioning.
