Hyacinth Chinweuba
The Federal Government has expressed worry over rising incident of rice smuggling saying that smuggling has significantly challenged local rice production in the country.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said smuggling of rice into the country was so much as two countries are being used for this.
He said the smuggled rice come through Nigeria’s borders with Benin and Cameroun.
Mohammed said over two million metric tonnes of parboiled rice came into Nigeria last year, according to the claims of members of Rice Millers Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria.
Mohammed said, “Let’s look at rice smuggling through Benin. The total demand for white rice (white rice is consumed in Benin, against parboiled rice in Nigeria) is 400,000 MT. Yet the country, with a population of about 11 million, imports between 1million and 1.2 million MT of rice annually. Who are they importing for? Nigerians, of course.
“In fact, as Nigeria’s rice import falls, Benin’s rice import increases. Most of the parboiled rice imported by Benin eventually lands in Nigeria through smuggling. Both Cameroon and Benin Republics have lowered tariff payable on rice to zero and five per cent respectively to encourage importation and subsequent smuggling of the product into Nigeria.”
“Smuggled rice is sourced mainly from Thailand and India, which gives a high level of subsidies to rice farmers and rice processors. Local rice producers have made some representation to the government on how Nigerian rice can compete favourably, in terms of pricing, with the heavily subsidised imported rice.
“The country has never been closer to self-sufficiency in rice, a national staple, than now. Our target is to achieve self-sufficiency in our paddy production in two years, by 2020.
“This has been made possible by the purposeful leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, who has consistently said that this nation must produce what it consumes.”
“Within two years, rice importation from Thailand fell from 644,131 MT (in September 2015) to 20,000 MT (in September 2017). That’s over 90 per cent drop. So far, less than N100bn has been spent on the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme that has achieved so much.
“Meanwhile, in April 2008, the Federal Government had to quickly release N80bn from the Natural Resources Development Fund to import 500,000 MT of rice in order to cushion what it said was the effect of a global disaster. Imagine that we have ploughed that money into rice production in 2008. We would have been exporting rice by now.
“Nigeria’s rice paddy production has seen significant growth in the past three years, from four million MT to seven million MT. The country’s rice import bill, hitherto at $1.65bn annually, has dropped by over 90 per cent, with current consumption of approximately six million MT of milled rice.
“In 2015, Nigeria produced 2.5 million MT of milled rice. By 2017, it rose to four million MT, leaving a gap of two million MT. Our target is to fill that gap by 2020. In 2015, there were only 13 integrated mills. By 2017, the number rose to 21, after eight more were added.”