The Chairman, Presidential Task Force on Trade Malpractice, Mr. Dahiru Ado-Kurawa, says Nigeria will soon stop importing rice. Okechukwu Nnodim spoke with him
Nigerians have criticised the policy against rice importation. What is your take on this?
No policy of government is formulated for a negative reason. All policies of government are made in the interest of Nigerians. Duty was increased this year and of course, part of the work of government is to assess the impact of policies and continue to make policy adjustments and reviews with the target always in mind.
Our target is self-sufficiency in rice in Nigeria and I believe that a country like Nigeria will achieve this target. If you recollect, 20 to 30 years ago Nigeria was an importer of maize but everybody here now eats or takes pap made with Nigerian maize.
As a country we have come a long way and we have seen so many imported products that have been replaced by local production. Nigeria is the largest producer of cassava in the whole world and so when we look at products like rice being imported; let us look at products like maize and cassava where we have 100 per cent self-sufficiency.
Are you saying that with this policy Nigeria will soon stop importing rice?
I want to seize this opportunity to assure Nigerians that it is the same effort that was put in to stop the importation of maize that will be made in this case by this government. This is to ensure that no single grain of rice consumed in Nigeria is planted by any other country other than Nigeria.
So this is part of the effort of government to consistently and continuously look at its policies and consistently ensure that they are implemented and are for the benefit of Nigerians. Rice has become a bane for all of us but I will be very happy to report that the achievement in production of rice this year alone is more than the country has ever witnessed. So for the records and for everybody to know, the policies of government are working indeed.
Now if we are losing revenue in terms of rice being smuggled, we are gaining employment in terms of rice being planted. At no period in the history of this country has rice been in the forefront of discussion; has rice been on the front burner, or has rice been planted to the extent that it has been this year. So it is actually a bumper year for Nigerian rice. Even though we have witnessed substantial drop in import, we have seen that the substantial drop translates to import by our neighbouring countries which inadvertently end up in this country. But what we want to say is that steps will be taken continuously to ensure that every policy is implemented fully to the benefit of Nigerians.
You and members of your team had a meeting recently. What are the highlights of this meeting?
We met to assess the policy of rice imports over the year and to come up with suggestions for reviewing and implementing of the policy in the coming year.
What extent of commitment has the government made to halt the importation of rice?
It will be too early to give concrete steps because we are still deliberating on these steps. But I can assure you that with the fiscal policy for next year, there will be a banquet of incentives for producing rice in Nigeria and militating against the smuggling of rice into this country.
What are you doing as regards allegations that rice is illegally brought into free trade zones in Nigeria?
It has been brought to our attention that rice is purportedly brought into the free trade zones. I cannot make serious comments because the development is under investigation. But if indeed the information is correct that there is smuggling through free trade zones, then know that it is easy to control because these zones are government territories and there is a whole organisation monitoring their activities. The organisation also manages the activities of the zones.
So I can assure you that we are going to investigate this allegation and we will make sure that things are done the right way. This is because the government is serious in this struggle to stop importation of products that we can conveniently produce in this country. People should not be perturbed because we are working hard to make sure things work in this sector and ensure that Nigeria is self-sufficient in rice production.
What achievements have been made as Nigeria works towards becoming self-sufficient in rice production?
Well, I won’t talk statistics right now because we are still collecting figures. But what I can assure you is that the milling capacity in Nigeria this year alone went up by about 200 to 300 per cent. There’s been such a huge improvement in milling capacity and of course that is driving the production of rice.
This is not to say there are no challenges and that is why we met in a bid to look at the challenges and come up with workable measures to address them. So specifically, there has been remarkable improvement as we work towards being self-sufficient in rice production and this is well pronounced in Nigeria’s milling capacity.
How much revenue is Nigeria losing to rice smuggling?
I will not jump the gun and take a figure just like that, but one thing I can assure you is that importation of rice has dropped. The controller-general of customs has furnished the House of Representatives with the figures, which I cannot give you offhand. So I think I will rely on whatever figure that the controller gave as loss of revenue.
However, I want to assure Nigerians that all is not lost because we have made huge strides in production of rice locally and we are taking steps to ensure that whatever is lost in terms of revenue is gained in terms of added production of rice in the country. Over four million tonnes of rice has been produced locally and probably about another 1.5 million imported. Previously we used to import about two million tonnes and produce about three million tonnes.
So we can see that there is a bit of replacement of imported rice by local rice. I can assure you that the Ministry of Agriculture has been working tirelessly and is going to announce a basket of incentives that will push this figure from four million to the five million that we consume. But statistics has it that we imported, two and three years ago, about 1.5 million tonnes and produced about three million tonnes. The statistics is beginning to work in favour of the efforts of the government because we have local production of four million tonnes against what you can only get as an imported quantity of about a million and half.
Copyright PUNCH.
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.
Contact: editor@punchng.com