By Jude Opara
There are fresh transparency concerns over the implementation of Nigeria’s multi-billion-naira Sugar Master Plan following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request insisting on a comprehensive audit of public funds, land acquisitions, factory projects and investment commitments running for the last 10 years.
Trustees of Rural Development, Information and Legal Advocacy (RUDILAC) in a request addressed to the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), are demanding the full disclosure of critical records relating to the first phase of the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan (2012–2022).
It could be recalled that the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan is one of the Federal Government’s most ambitious agricultural industrialization programmes designed to transform Nigeria into a major sugar-producing nation.
The demand for disclosure is coming at the heel of concerns over local and international funding of the industry.
According to the counsel to the applicant Rifkat Ali (Miss); “There is a need for access to public resources and extensive investor support. We are heavily dependent on imported sugar while many of the promised industrial and agricultural outcomes remain difficult to verify through publicly available records”.
By the FOI request, the NGO’s particular attention on the planned establishment of 28 sugar factories, large-scale sugarcane plantations and specialised bio-factories intended to support seed multiplication and agricultural productivity. The Council has been asked to disclose which projects are fully operational, partially completed, dormant or abandoned.
Similarly, the request further seeks records relating to the beneficiaries of public interventions under the Sugar Development Fund, the identities of companies that failed to meet their investment obligations, and documents showing the acquisition and utilisation of land earmarked for sugarcane cultivation across various states of the country.
The inquiry further extends to disputes between host communities and investors over land ownership, compensation arrangements and project implementation.
The group is equally of the view that where public institutions administer industry-wide intervention funds, grant fiscal incentives, allocate strategic land resources and oversee large-scale development programmes, citizens are entitled to know what results have been achieved and whether public objectives have been attained.
The NSDC principal officers under the FOI Act may be exposed to judicial review and possible criminal arraignment of they fail to comply with the statutory disclosure obligations.
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