Customs Grain Auction: Attention Shifts to Localization of Beneficiaries
The Comptroller General, Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, has said that the auction of grains, which is part of the federal government’s initiative to stave off hunger from its citizenry, will continue even as he stressed the need for beneficiaries to come from all communities where the Service operates.
Adeniyi, while speaking with journalists in Lagos, he emphasized the need for localization of information such that citizens from communities where the auctions are to be done emerge as beneficiaries.
The auction exercise which began in Lagos yesterday at the Zone ‘A’ office of the Nigeria Customs Service with the sale of 25 kilograms of seized foreign parboiled rice is a fulfillment of the promise made by the Customs Boss.
A 25 kilograms bag of rice which currently sells at between thirty five thousand naira to forty thousand naira (N35,000 – N40,000) at the public market was sold for N10,000 to thousands of Nigerians.
Some conditions listed as criteria for the sale are that individuals must possess a National Identification Number (NIN) and that the items so bought must not be resold.
His words: “This is one effort that the federal government is making to ensure that we force down the prices of goods in the market and address the fall of the naira. It is not going to be done permanently. It is an intervention because we are in a period of emergency and we are responding to the crisis of food availability in Nigeria.
“It is going to be for a period of time. As we seize items during this period, we will be disposing of them through this channel. To ensure that food get to Nigerians at affordable prices. Any Nigerian from the remotest village can have access to National Identification Number and this is one way we think we can promote data governance in Nigeria.
“In the area of operation, if we are selling in Idiroko for example, there would be no point announcing it in Lagos so that people in Idiroko can benefit from it. If we are doing it in Kano, there will be no point announcing it in Lagos. Let Kano people localize the announcement and that would help us to reduce the number of people that will show up to buy the rice.”
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