Dangote official disagrees with Pyxera tomato supply claims

Dangote Farms Limited got 356 tons of fresh tomato from Pyxera Global last year, not 2,073 tons, the farm’s Field Maintenance and Compliance Manager, Jafar Sani, has said.

Pyxera is implementing the Yieldwise Programme, a $130 million initiative aimed at reducing postharvest loss in the tomato value chain in Nigeria, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Sani was reacting to the Pyxera officials who said it succeeded in supplying the farm 2,073 tons of fresh tomatoes during the recent stakeholders’ retreat held in Kano.

Dangote official said, “At the forum, Mr Lekan Tobe, Pyxera’s Project Director of Yieldwise Programme during his presentation flaunted figures that were deliberately cooked to impress the audience especially the representative of the Rockefeller Foundation, funder of the project.”

“He stated in his presentation that through their intervention they have succeeded in supplying Dangote tomato factory 2,073 tons of fresh tomato. This is far from the truth as in total, Dangote factory from the commencement of production in 2016 through to this season (2017) has only processed 2,200 tons of fresh tomato out of which Pyxera Global supplied only 356 tons last year and none this year,” Sani told Daily Trust.

When contacted, Mr Tobe said “we didn’t create figures. We are an NGO; the truth is what we are giving to you.”

“Actually, the total from last year up to now that our farmers supplied is 2,073 metric tons tomatoes only,” he said.

“In 2016 dry season, our farmers supplied 1,358 metric tons while the dry season of 2017, between February and May, is 715 metric tons,” the Pyxera project director told Daily Trust.

“Last year and this year which brings the total to 2,073 metric tons were what we presented.

“In the presentation, we only said anchor buyers, we didn’t say the company but that is their own assumptions that it is them we are talking about,” Mr Tobe said.