FG to earn N180bn from fire, cassava investments -ICRC
The Federal Government will earn N180 billion revenue in 15 years from a N15.4 billion investment in cassava and fire detection technology.
The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission announced this in a statement on Saturday.
According to ICRC, the revenue which will be generated from the concession of a Cassava Bio-mass, Bio-ethanol Value Chain and the National Fire Detection and Alarm System is estimated to generate N180 billion.
The statement noted that the NAFDAS project will generate a total of N75 billion in the 15-year concession period, while Cassava Bio-ethanol Value Chain will generate a total revenue of N105 billion within a five-year concession period.
It read, “The Cassava Bio-Ethanol Value Chain will be done on a pilot phase with the aim of building “a Bio-technology Industrial Park on a 20-hectare plot across 20 Universities, Academia and Research and Development Institutes. In the pilot phase, 5,000 special hybrid cassava (TME 419) stems will be planted per hectare, (100,000 stems for 20 hectares).
“It is projected that Cassava production will double from the current 62 million tons to output of over 120 million tons with improved tropical agro-ecology, bio-technology, intense mechanisation and effective partnership resource mobilisation in five years
“The key goal of this cassava – Bioethanol pilot project is to demonstrate the efficacy of a private sector led approach in promoting investment in renewable biomass and create wealth, provide jobs, reduce poverty, improve food security and nutrition, provide renewable energy and reduce carbon footprint” the ICRC said.
It added that the project will be financed with a grant from the federal government and concessionaire investment totalling N11.9billion.
The revenue stream presented by the project includes sales of cassava stem, cassava flour, garri, starch and Bio-ethanol.
Also, the NAFDAS project is to provide fire mitigation hardware, software and equipment that will be linked to a cloud network which will be supervised by the Federal Fire Service through a Private entity.
According to the ICRC, “Through the use of this technology, call and response time in fire incidents will be automated thus drastically reduced, avoidable incidents forestalled, more life and property saved and generally improve the efficiency in fire prevention, detection and management”.
“This means that smoke alarms and other fire detection hardware will be linked to a server which will alert the system when the user is in distress without them having to call for help.
“The project will begin on a pilot scale with seven states of the federation before rolling out to all other states across the country.”
The total projected cost for the project is put at N3.5 billion whereas government targets a revenue generation of N75 billion within the 15-year period of the concession.
“The revenue stream presented by the project includes margin on installations and annual subscription fee from users of the service.
“Revenue from both projects will be shared between the federal government and the concessionaire at a ratio decided in the concession agreement,” it stated
