Kogi State Government is set to inaugurate a newly-constructed rice mill worth over ₦4 Billion and with the capacity to produce 50 tonnes of rice per day.
Gov. Yahaya Bello disclosed this on Tuesday, September 2019, during an inspection tour of the mill at Omi dam in Ejiba, Yagba West Local Government Area of the state.
”In 2016, we visited this particular Dam and I promised to establish a rice mill here, and today we have this factory 100 percent established by Kogi State Government.
”We approached the Federal Government through the Minister for Water Resources, to allow us to use this dam for the benefit of our people.
”Today, we are here to inspect a brand new rice factory that is second to none, as far as northern Nigeria is concerned,” Bello said.
He said that the factory had the capacity to produce over 1000 bags of 50 kg of high-quality rice every day, and could employ over 5000 people as direct labor, and more of indirect employments.
He said that over N300 million would be injected into the economy of the state every month, through the factory, while generating additional over N120 million as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for the state, monthly.
”The rice mill will also be producing fish and poultry meals because we are presently having over 500 fish ponds in this Omi dam.
”We have the capacity to produce cassava and all agro-allied products in this particular location,” the governor said.
He stated that the factory had its own independent power generation plant, powered through biomass gasification technology.
According to him, the capacity of the plant is 500 kWh and the rice milling plant capacity at every processing line (shift) is 200kwh.
Bello also said that the plant would have an excess power of 300kwh, which would be used to power strategic locations in neighboring communities.
”Kogi is situated in the center of Nigeria. People traveling to North, South, East, and West must pass through Kogi, which means we are saddled with lots of responsibilities.