RICE SMUGGLERS TO GO TO JAIL. FG.

The Federal Government has promised to seek out and punish those who smuggle rice into the country. The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, in his briefing during the FEC meeting, lamented that smugglers were compromising the progress being recorded in local rice production in the country.

Ogbeh pointed out that smuggled rice in the country came mainly from Benin Republic and Niger Republic. He added that delays in rice supply from local rice millers are caused by smugglers who seem determined to frustrate the millers’ efforts by dumping bags of smuggled rice at a price they cannot compete with.

Audu Ogbeh. Hon Minister of Agriculture . 

“The delays happen because many of the millers tell me that they can’t mill because of the activities of smugglers. They mill the rice. The smugglers dump them at N12,500. And the smugglers can dump at N12,500 because they are subsidised from Thailand. They are determined to see that we don’t succeed. We can’t do that because we can’t subsidise to that level,” he said.

“We say if everything goes well without the smugglers, our people should be able to sell here at N13,500 per bag. They agreed, but then the smugglers are coming and the millers are holding back. I, alone can’t solve the problem. That was why the president had to say yesterday (Tuesday) that we will come down hard on activities of smugglers because they are doing us a lot of damage. We keep fighting, a little here, a little there. We ‘ll get there,” the minister added.

According to the World Bank disclosure, rice smugglers’ activities cost Nigeria a whopping $5 billion annually.
In a similar development, the federal government has approved the sum of N5.567 billion to check erosion in six states of the country.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, stated this recently at the end of a Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, listed the states as Sokoto, Kano, Ondo, Enugu, Bayelsa and Osun. The Erosion Control Intervention and Acceleration body will be overseeing erosion management in the benefitting states.