Smugglers Flood Nigerian Markets with Expired, Toxic Rice

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Smugglers seem to have taken over the Nigerian rice market, flooding the it with sub-standard and expired rice across the country, with reports of hundreds of trailers crossing the porous borders reaching a high in the recent weeks and endangering the country’s plans to achieve self-sufficiency in rice production.

Industry sources and consumers urged the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to curb smuggling through intensified efforts. They also asked for NAFDAC to take urgent action by inspecting rice stored at several clandestine storage locations in the country.

LEADERSHIP checks indicate that given the un-met demand of more than three million tonnes annually and owing to inadequate local production, Nigeria’s mass consumption needs for rice are currently restricted for legal imports given high import tariff and lack of cohesive policy.

Legal importers paying full tariff of 70 per cent will never be able to compete with smugglers who enjoy a free ride into the market, aided by negligible tariffs in neighbouring Cameroon and Republic of Benin, taking advantage of porous borders.

Reports emerge that the huge influx has been noticed in the market from last Saturday, the worst affected being Lagos and South West. Rice arrived in big trailers with 1200-1500 numbers of 50kg bags from Cotonou. There is substantial under declaration and non-payment aspects in these shipments, making is non-viable for legal importers and local producers to compete with these shipments.

The most concerning issue is that substandard, cheap and sometimes expired (poisonous) rice is filling up the markets, and desperate consumers end up buying them, risking their good health. Industry sources lament that the rice does not meet NAFDAC standards of quality and that the organisation should move forthwith to galvanise their inspection activities at the borders, warehouses, markets and other places where such rice is stored for onward sale to the customers.

The illegal routes are located in Lagos, Ogun, Oyo,Kwara, Cross River, Rivers, Taraba, Borno, Adamawa,Kastina, Sokoto and Zamfara states.

The chairman of Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), Vicky Haastrup, puts the local production capacity at 30 per cent. “It is a fact that local production cannot match local demand, which creates a recipe for smuggling,” she said. According to her, “our neighbouring countries are profiting from the policy by dropping their own tariffs on rice, and because they are benefitting, they give tacit support to these smugglers.”

To Haastrup and other stakeholders, the nation’s chances of achieving the rice self-sufficiency target by this year will continue to getting slimmer unless government stems cross-border smuggling. The country is already in the last quarter of the year and the anti-smuggling campaign has not gathered enough steam for the realisation of the target.

The Chairman of PRAN, an association of local growers and legal importers of rice, Alhaji Habilu Maishinkafa, is livid. He said a bleak future is steering investors in the face because of the upsurge in the activities of rice smugglers.

He lamented that the rate of smuggling of the commodity remains quite high, with concomitant effects of loss of investment, market share, job losses, revenue and increase in youth unemployment. The PRAN chair said large scale investments in farming and milling industries by private businesses are being jeopardised by the free reign of rice smugglers.

Explaining the process of rice production, experts say the farmers must plant rice and produce paddy (raw) rice, sell the paddy rice to the processors, who turn the rice into finished products.

They lamented that the processors no longer buy paddy from the farmers in sufficient quantities because the price is not attractive for business.

Noting, for instance, that local rice farms and milling plants have been unable to impact on host communities as they are supposed to following the ugly development,

Maishinkafa expressed fears that the rice policy is gradually being eroded in view of the unrestrained activities of economic saboteurs, illegal importers and smugglers. He appealed to the Federal Government to tighten the porous borders.

Source: Leadership