Nigeria loses N116.4bn yearly to rice smuggling
A group of stakeholders in the rice business sector under the aegis of All Farmers’ Association of Nigeria (AFAN), who made the disclosure, said the potential revenue of the rice sector is being threatened by the activities of smugglers and their collaborators. They called on the federal government to review its Trade Liberalisation Scheme agreement among West African states in the face of continued smuggling activities from the country’s neighbours.
A large scale farmer in Kano and a member of the association, Sabo Nayara , said the call for the review became imperative because of imbalance of trade, smuggling and dumping of goods in the country. He said while the government is trying to encourage local production of rice, thereby creating employment, income and value chain, some other people are rubbishing these noble efforts by smuggling the product into the country.
Nayara said that it was disheartening to note that investments and policies of government were being threatened on a daily basis by the incessant smuggling activities by a small few. “Unscrupulous smugglers find it attractive to smuggle goods from neighbouring countries into Nigeria without paying necessary duties. This affects investors’ investment in the country.
For instance, Benin Republic consumes only white rice but imports parboiled rice with destination for the Nigerian market. If the Federal Government reviews the trade liberalization scheme and closes its borders to smuggled goods, neighbouring countries will take us serious. The quantum of rice being smuggled through our land borders from the Republic of Benin is increasing on a daily basis. Almost 45,000 MTS is entering the Northern part of the country from Niger and Cameroun,” he stated.
According to him, if they are encouraged in Kano State, “we have great potential for supporting the increasing rice demand in Nigeria, as today, the average out put per hectare in the state stands at 6.25 metric tons .”
Bunmi Owolabi, a local rice farmer in Kogi, said that the major routes used for smuggling in the North is Maradi and Zinder as lot of warehouses in Katsina state are used for smuggling operation of rice.
He urged the Nigeria Customs Service to quickly take action. “The present scheme, as it is being run, is to the detriment of the nation’s industrial sector and government needs to address this as soon as possible. We as Nigerian investors have made sacrifices by paying higher duties for the importation of rice through the official channels, while some of our members have begun the backward integration process for rice value-chain. We cannot allow smugglers to keep destroying these investments. There should be zero tolerance for smuggling.”
A rice seller at Daleko market, who pleaded for anonymity, said most of the rice products on display for sale are smuggled into the country through the land borders. A survey at the Seme and Idiroko border posts showed that big-time smugglers now have a long queue of specially-built trailers to carry 72 tons of goods – mostly rice – as against the 32-ton trailer.
Nigeria’s yearly consumption of rice is about 5.5 million metric tonnes. While 1.8 million is produced locally, the country relies on importation to make up the balance of 3.7 million metric tonnes.
Vanguard
