Fayemi
Posted by: Sulaiman Salawudeen, Ado-Ekiti in News 7 hours ago
•Plant to process 2,000 chickens daily
Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has said the poultry project initiated and abandoned by former Governor Ayo Fayose cannot be revived because it was designed to fail.
Fayemi spoke with reporters yesterday after inspecting a poultry farm and a processing plant established by his administration in Ikere and Ado-Ekiti.
He said his administration cannot revive Fayose’s poultry project like it did other moribund projects established by previous administrations because it was not designed as “a viable project”.
The governor, who was conducted round the poultry farm and processing plant by the Commissioner for Agriculture, Jide Arowosafe, said Fayose’s poultry project, which gulped over N1 billion, did not have a sustainable plan.
He said there was no equipment in the processing plant purportedly put in place by the erstwhile governor in his Afao-Ekiti country home.
Fayemi said his administration put in place a processing plant in Ado- Ekiti for farmers under the Youth in Commercial Agriculture Development (YCAD) with less than N20 million, while the Fayose-led administration spent a whopping sum on a similar project that never took off.
Fayose is on trial for alleged misappropriation of funds meant for the project.
Fayemi said: “This government is serious about agriculture and we are not playing lip service to it. The Fayose farms are not revivable. You can see the quality of the building at the Benin-Owena poultry farm that we have revived. We spent less than N50 million to revive those huge poultry units on the Ikere-Ise road.
“You cannot compare them to those wooden sheds that were called poultry farms by the previous administration, which have already collapsed. They have all crashed because they were not meant to last in the first instance. We are confident that placed side by side the antecedent of our predecessor, the difference is like 7up.
“The processing plant was put in place for YCAD with less than N20 million. What we have done for our YCAD farmers with less than N20 million is what was done in this state a few years ago with over N1 billion, which is still the subject of investigation. The project never saw the light of the day. There was no processing plant. A building was put up in Afao, which was supposed to lead to the processing plant, but there was no equipment there. If you go to all the units in the 16 local government areas, you will know what I am talking about.”
The governor reiterated his determination to make Ekiti the food basket of the Southwest.
He said the processing plant has the capacity to process over 2,000 birds daily, adding that Ekiti can now supply fresh frozen chicken to neighbouring states.
Fayemi said he was confident that this would turn around the fortune of poultry farmers in the state.
He said: “What you see here is a processing plant that can daily treat 2,000 birds right from scalding to feathering and sending them to the market. The poultry will feed the processing plant. You have seen the various processing units and the cold room where the chickens would be stored before they get to the market through the Fountain Markets.”
Arowosafe said the processing plant is being test-run and would begin full production next week.
He said the state has 27,000 birds and is in talks with business organisations across the country to market the product. He said Ekiti residents would no longer have to travel to other states to get frozen chicken.
Source: The Nation
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