AfricaPress-Tanzania: SUGAR-growing SJ Sugar Distillery & Power Private Company has been assured by the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) that it will be given substitute land for growing sugar cane and shift from the current tract that has been flooded.
The TIC Director General, Mr Geoffrey Mwambe, told the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Kamel Abdullah Saleem after visiting the flooded tract that the centre would find alternative land to allow the investor to continue with investment plans.
“This investor had already planted sugar cane seedlings in 500 hectares out of the 3,000 given to him in Kilambo area. But the entire land has been flooded by the on-going rains, destroying all the property. We have contacted Mtwara District Council for alternative land to be given to the investor,” he told reporters.
The director general said the sugar factory would be first one in the southern regions and would produce 10,000 tonnes of sugar annually for an ever-increasing local market.
“We shall support the company in getting suitable land to continue with production but at the same time ensure no harm is done to the environment,” he said, adding that investment was an important element in promoting the national industrialisation agenda.
Mtwara District Commissioner (DC), Evodi Mmanda also assured that all necessary ground work would be done by district experts before land was given to the investor.
Mr Saleem thanked the TIC and the Regional Administration for urgent action to ensure the company’s investment plans did not fail.
“We are thankful the immediate response of the leaders in the regional administration. They have visited our flooded area, consoled us and pledged to give us alternative land to continue with our plans,” he said.
