Rice growers hail Customs’ measures against smuggling

Local growers of rice and its lawful importers have hailed the decision at the weekend of the Nigeria Customs Service to ban the entry of foreign rice through the country’s land borders.
In a decision aimed at ending the massive smuggling of rice, which has cost the country no less than N27 billion since January this year and threatening to throw local rice production into jeopardy, the Customs said on Friday that the importation of rice through land borders had been stopped forthwith.
Spokesman of the NCS, Wale Adeniyi, who announced the decision in Abuja, said “all imported rice must come through the sea ports with duty paid on them according to the law.”
Acknowledging this decision as proper and timely in a statement on Sunday, the Patriotic Rice Association of Nigeria, which raised an alarm alleging, among others, that smugglers had overwhelmed the Customs, said that nothing short of the closure of the borders against smugglers would save the budding rice industry in the country.
PRAN, represented by its leaders, Alhaji Habibu Maishinkafa and Martins Okereke, said that it is the higher tariff and consequent high market prices that have enthused smugglers to push large volumes of rice into Nigeria with zero duty, thereby unsettling the Federal Government’s efforts to make Nigeria self sufficient in rice production by 2015.
The association decried the situation in which “large-scale investments made into the farming and milling industries by private businesses are also in jeopardy, following Customs’ inability to protect the industry from the vagaries of smugglers.”
PRAN quoted reports that suggested that more than 400,000 metric tonnes of rice from various origins are estimated to enter the country illegally, dealing a major financial blow to legitimate importers and rice millers.
“Needless to add, these illegal imports result in substantial loss of revenue for the Government, estimated to be in the range of N27 billion by industry observers,” they said.
In his statement on Friday, Adeniyi announced that the NCS had impounded 35,194 bags of rice, estimated to cost about N217 million in the last two months.
PRAN last week alleged that several vessels, with cargoes totaling more than 220,000 metric tonnes from India and Thailand, have flooded the ports of Benin Republic and Cameroun in order to eventually find their way into Nigeria through the borders.
Vessels from India, with 90,000 metric tonnes to Benin Republic, include MV Lord Curzon, MV Santa Barbara, MV Zeynupkiran, MV Emenates and MV Captain.
The statement added: “Vessels from Thailand with cargoes of more than 130,000 metric tonnes are shipped to Benin on vessels MV White Fin, MV Makra, MV Blanco Zealand and others. Several container loads totaling over 150,000 tonnes since the start of 2013 have also started penetrating through the borders through Benin, Niger Republic, borders with Northern Nigeria and in the east with Yaounde. More than 8 million bags of rice have flooded all markets including Alaba, Daleko, Ideo, Singer and other prominent nationwide markets.”
The rice growers also noted that smugglers have reportedly used sophisticated weapons attacking and killing Customs’ staff, inflicting fears in the ranks across the borders.
PRAN said the recent decision banning smuggled rice by the NCS should be supported by the Customs rank-and-file and by the entire citizens because it is “a patriotic measure.”