Imota rice mill to start production first quarter next year ― Sanwo-Olu

Lagos State governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Friday, gave the assurance that barring any exigency, the 32-metric tonnes per hour rice mill being constructed by the state government at Imota area of Ikorodu division will start operations before the end of the first quarter in 2022.

The governor gave this assurance after touring the project site, saying the facility would be subjected to a pre-production test run before the end of the first quarter next year, after which the full production capacity would be activated.

Governor Sanwo-Olu was accompanied by the Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms Abisola Olusanya, and members of the state cabinet on an on-the-spot assessment of the biggest agro project, coming two years after his first visit to the site.

Sanwo-Olu said he was elated by the progress achieved on the site, having met the project from the foundation level, disclosing that the project was expected to have been delivered by the end of 2020, but for the disruption occasioned by the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

He said the new deadline remained sacrosanct, promising to prevail on all contractors working at the site to ramp up their activities before the next year first quarter.

“I am happy with what I am seeing on the site and we are working to meet the deadline for the pre-production test run. We are going to charge on our contractors working on-site to ensure that by the end of the first quarter next year, this mill should have started operations; that is, we should start producing rice from here.

“What is left is to see how quickly we can ramp up work on the storage facility, which has the capacity to take production up to three to six months. There are 16 silos that have a combined capacity of 40,000 metric tonnes. Each has 2,500 metric tonnes. The two sections of the silos are at about 85 and 70 per cent completion,” the governor stated.

Governor Sanwo-Olu said construction work on the storage facilities would be completed in the next four weeks, after which major cleanup would commence across the major site in preparation for a production test run.

According to the governor, discussion around operation mode and production process at the rice mill would begin, when delivered, saying full production of the facility would drastically reduce prices of rice and pressure to purchase the commodity.

“We are very much excited with how far we have gone on the construction. We are believing that all the contractors are working collaboratively to ensure the deadlines set are met,” Sanwo-Olu said.

The rice mill has been built with a capacity to produce 2.8 million bags of 50kg bags of rice yearly while generating 1,500 direct jobs and 254,000 indirect jobs.

The state government is also developing an industrial park adjacent to the mill. The governor said the park would have amenities that would make businesses thrive and bring returns on investment to business owners.

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