…Says importation of rice unofficially banned
The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Col. Hammed Ali (rtd) has said that the service will soon come up with a policy to mop up arms that are circulating in the country.
Ali who disclosed this in an addressed to mark the 2018 World Customs Day celebration with the theme, “A secure business environment for economic development”, in Abuja on Friday said that the policy would not only check the influx of weapons into the country, but also would control the coming of other illicit items.
He stated that border management had become the most difficult issue lately hence the West African region formed the Securité Par Collaboration (SPC++) comprising of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon to tackle the challenge.
He noted that the idea behind SPC++ was to sit as Customs Services and work out how the borders can be better managed adding that the global problem for the Customs was managing borders, particularly in Nigeria, where 4,070 kilometers of land borders existed.
“There is nowhere in the world that anyone can extensively cover that. We need the collaboration with each and every one of us. We need to join hands with our neighbours and that is only how we can effectively police our borders and ensure what we see in Libya and other countries do not find their way into our territory.
“Already we have enough of it and I hope we will soon come up with a policy on how to retract these arms that are circulating within our publics. But while we are doing that, we thought we should also come up with a comprehensive mechanism to be able checkmate not only weapons arms but all illicit items into our territory”, he explained.
The CGC informed that the service had unofficially banned the importation of rice into the country even as he observed that the Central Bank of Nigeria which was responsible for the issuance of Form M for the importation of rice, had not issued it to any importers since 2017.
While insisting that any parboiled rice that was not locally produced in Nigeria must have been smuggled into the country, Ali called on Nigerians to ensure that their cooks and stewards buy locally produced rice warning that whoever patronized imported rice was encouraging smuggling.
The Customs boss noted that a country cannot be said to be truly independent if it could not feed itself saying that he supported President Muhammadu Buhari’s position in his New Year address, to the effect that the importation of rice into the country would be banned completely this year.
In his words, “As at today, unofficially, rice is banned because since the beginning of 2017, Central Bank which is supposed to issue Form M, which is the only permit for importation has not issued any Form M to rice importer.
“So, any parboiled rice you see, which is not our own local rice must have been smuggled in. So, if you go to buy this, then you are encouraging the smugglers and therefore negating the growth of our economy.
“Any country that cannot feed itself cannot claim to be independent and I think we want to be independent.”
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