Sylva Emeka-Okereke
23 February 2010
Lagos — President of Rice Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria (RIDAN), Gbadamosi Mufutau has raised fresh alarm that the unbridled smuggling of goods through borders areas, coupled with the recent increase in the benchmark for rice importation are threatening their business.
While speaking to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) last week, Mufutau said these factors are capable of frustrating the importers out of business, just as it is capable of making mess of the federal government's plan to improve the sector. The federal government had last year proposed to establish 17 rice mill plants in some states of the federation.
It would be recalled that the federal government recently increased the benchmark for rice importation from $590, about N88, 500 to $640 (N96, 000) while duties payable on them, increased to 32 per cent. This is in addition to the increasing smuggling activities, which have been threatening the nation's economy to a halt.
The RIDA boss, who spoke to NAN said 560, 000 tones of parboiled rice imported into Republic of Benin in 2009 found their way into Nigerian markets, which resulted into loss of over N16.3 billion.
He said the quantity of rice smuggled into the country through the nation's borders was increasing by the day, recalling that the smuggling, which started since 2005 has continued to increase astronomically.
"Go to Seme and Idiroko borders, you will see the beehive of activities of loading of hundreds of articulated vehicles with different products heading to Nigeria .It is a big economy for some selected people now while the Nigeria importers are grounded," he said.
According to him, if activities of the smugglers remained unchecked, it would cripple activities of genuine importers and lead to sacking of over one million workforces….
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