- Nigeria sets to stop issuance of fish importation quota – Minister
The Rice Millers Association of Nigeria (RIMAN) may henceforth become a major informant of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) towards determining the movement of smuggled rice, so as to curb rice smuggling in Nigeria.
The RIMAN’s Chairman, Board of Trustees, Mr Peter Dharma, indicated this in Kano on Tuesday, at the inaugural meeting of the association.
“Our association will work closely with the regulatory and policy makers to ensure standards in local rice milling,” he stated, noting that Nigerians had, over the years, been losing enormous resources to smuggling of food items, particularly rice into the country.
Mr Dharma who also pledged that the association would support the Federal Government’s programme value chain of local rice cultivation, milling, processing and production; maintained that RIMAN would equally support research into renewable energy source, and would recommend same to its members in the near future.
Speaking on the occasion, the Area Commander of the Nigeria Customs Service, Mr Yusuf Abba, hailed RIMAN’s plan, as according to him, it will yield some economic benefits to the country.
Abba, who was represented by the Deputy Comptroller Enforcement of the service, Mr Ago Hyacinth, said smugglers should no longer be allowed to sabotage the nation’s economy.
Mallam Muhammed Munir, a director at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the Federal Government’s injection of money into the sector, would facilitate employment opportunities for citizens.
The association later brainstormed during the inaugural meeting, on the various challenges currently facing rice production in the country.
In the meantime, the Federal Government says it will stop issuing fish importation quota to importers, saying the venture was no longer sustainable.
Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, said this during a meeting with the Ijebu Development Initiative on Poverty Reduction (IDIPR) in Abuja on Tuesday.
The minister said that stopping the trade would help boost local production of fish and other aspects of agriculture in the country.
According to him, the current deficit in fish in Nigeria is over two million tonnes. He urged citizens to invest to boost fish production and create jobs in the sector.
“We realised that fish import is no more sustainable and what we did was to encourage those that import it to think of the backward integration by reducing the quota year by year in agreement with the CBN.
“Very soon, we are not going to give quota for fish importation. We want everybody to set up their fish farms, employ our people and create jobs for our people.
“When we came last two years, Nigeria was producing about 700,000 tonnes of fish but this has increased to about 1.2 million tonnes which means that there has been an increment of 400,000 tonnes.
“This increase represents more than 50 per cent of what we were producing,” he said.
Lokpobiri, who commended the IDIPR for contributing to fish production in the country, advised other states to emulate the community’s agricultural initiative.
He said the government would soon complete and commission the fish feed mill located at Eriwe village farm in Ijebu community of Ogun.
The minister quoted the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as saying that Ijebu community had the highest number of fish clusters in the world.
Earlier, Olanipekun Alausa, the Chairman, Board of Directors of the initiative, listed some challenges hindering the agricultural initiative to include inadequate access to loans and lack of modern agricultural tools for mechanised farming.
Mr. Alausa, who said the initiative was currently supplying food items to nine local government areas in the state, appealed for more support from the Federal Government to enhance the initiative’s performance.
Additional report from Premium
