Oyo state Government Lauds AfDB’s Special Agro-processing Zone Project

Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, has expressed the state government’s delight at the prospects and potentials of the African Development Bank (AFDB)’s special agro-processing zone project sited in the state.

Makinde made this known while receiving a team from the AfDB at the Governor’s Office, Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan, noting that the state was already moving in the direction of agro-processing in line with its agenda to expand the state’s economy through agribusiness.

The governor affirmed that the state was already witnessing a boom in cassava value chain and that the prospect of the special agro-processing zone project is exciting.

He said: “Few weeks back, we commissioned the second largest sorbitol plant in the world, owned by Psaltery International. That is one step further down in the cassava value chain, from cassava to fructose and then to Sorbitol.

“If you go to the neighbourhood of the plant in Ado-Awaye now, it is cassava all the way. In fact, once you get to Iseyin and move further, you will just see trucks carrying cassava all over the place and few of the things they have asked us for, we are pushing,” Makinde disclosed.

Earlier, the Special Adviser on Industrialisation to the AfDB President, Prof. Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, who led the team, stated that the process towards the building of the special agro-processing zone had been long, with Oyo State being one of the eight zones in Nigeria, expressing joy at being able to bring the project to fruition.

Oyelaran-Oyeyinka equally commended the Oyo State Government for the support it gave the AfDB on the project and the governor as “an indefatigable champion of the project”, noting that apart from possessing the requirements to get into the programme, the state also had the best environmental laws and was one of only two states to have signed off with the Federal Government on the subsidiary loan agreement.

He said: “We have a criteria, which has about eight requirements. And for you to get into the programme, you have to show that you have the requirements including the environmental report, visibility report, among others. At those initial phases, Oyo State had the best environmental laws, and even in terms of the subsidiary loan agreement, you have been one of the only two that signed off with the Federal Government.

“The model of this project is that with this loan, which is a very cheap one from the AfDB, the state is getting $7m, which is about N9.1b. It is a catalytic funding. Our own goal is to get other anchor investors who would bring equity. We don’t want states to be saddled with projects, loans, debts and all of that,” Oyelaran-Oyeyinka stated.

He revealed that the high-level launching of the project would come up on October 24th, saying the President would chair the meeting, while all the governors and ministers, including all the presidents of the partners of the project – AfDB, IFA, are expected at the event.