The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Col. Hameed Ali (rtd.) has said that the service is spearheading a total ban on importation of rice in Nigeria by the year 2017.
Ali made this known while delivering a lecture titled,”Non-Oil Revenue for Economic Growth: Impact of Nigeria Customs Service”, at the just concluded All Nigerian Maritime Journalists’ Retreat with the theme: Increasing Investment Opportunities in Nigeria’s Rich Maritime and Oil and Gas Sectors, organized by the Association of Maritime Journalists of Nigeria (AMJON) at ASCON, Topo, Badagry, Lagos State.
Represented by the National Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Service, Deputy Comptroller Wale Adeniyi, the CGC maintained that with so many agencies of government as well as state government involved in interventionist programme on rice production in the country, there was already a bumper harvest declared this year adding that with this, there won’t be any need spending scarce resources importing rice which he said could be produced locally.
According to him,” And I think that one critical seizure that we remember here is rice. So much had been talks about the production of rice vis-a-vis the importation of rice. We have so many agents of government, state governments in Nigeria that have been carrying out interventionist programmes on rice production and they are getting good results.
“A bumper harvest had been declared this year and we believe that with this kind of harvest, it does not make economic sense to us to spend billions of Naira to import rice that can be locally produced in Nigeria. So, customs is one of the agencies spearheading a complete ban on importation of rice by the year 2017”.
He observed that for over four decades, the citizenry had been entrapped in a web orchestrated by big time importers of food items adding that Nigerians had been made to believe that food was only good if it was imported.
“Rice is an obvious example of a product that has all it takes for all year round production in Nigeria. Several initiatives under this administration have shown that with the right political will, a revolution in agriculture will engage over 70% of the unemployed Nigerians and increase the GDP”, he said.
While restating the fact that the nation’s need to re-think in its economic development aspirations was not in doubt, he pointed out that Nigeria must look beyond oil and diversify even as he said that the option that promised a future assured on a sustainable basis was that which was inward looking and self sustaining.
The customs boss averred that a number of export promotion incentives over a decade ago had failed to produce the required results saying that there had been serious abuse not only from the supposed beneficiaries but implementing agencies including customs.
“I cannot stand here to tell you that customs has gotten everything right. There are things we need to get right including procedures of export so that we can review them so that export processes is a lot better in our economy. A fundamental review of these policies is necessary to achieve the desired objective of making Nigerian exports competitive in the global market”, he stated.
Ali reminded the journalists that they had a patriotic duty to assist in shaping the ongoing conversation about NCS role in economic development noting that while the service was happy when revenue derived from imports were celebrated, it would be happier if the Journalists’ reports set agenda for local production capacity of Nigerian producers to satisfy local demands and other similar indicators.
He added,” States like Kebbi, Ebonyi and Lagos have made great strides in local rice production. The challenges faces by the farmers and efforts to meet those challenges should be promoted rather than the attention on the ports. As stakeholders, we must see ourselves as partners rather than observers in the march towards charting a new course for economic growth in Nigeria”.
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