Rice importation aggravates unemployment in Nigeria - group
Every sack of rice imported into Nigeria from another country generates employment for a chain of that country’s citizens and denies employment to a chain of Nigerian citizens, the National Chairman of the North-East Commodity Association has said.
Alhaji Sadiq Umar Daware, who was in Maiduguri to inaugurate the association’s Borno State and local governments loan recovery committees, threw the association’s weight behind border closure.
“For us in NECAS, border closure is a welcome development, and it should be taken in good faith, because it will boost employment generation for our people in the cropping and processing chain of the commodity,” he observed.
“Any rice imported from China, India, Thailand or any other country plunges our people deeper into unemployment, while creating jobs for more people in that country.
“While a chain of people in that country are employed right from the rice cropping process, through its export process down to Nigeria, a chain of people in Nigeria are denied employment through such process because the importation of the commodity denies them the opportunity to grow and process it for consumption and possible export from Nigeria,” he reasoned.
Turning to the loan beneficiaries for this year’s cropping season, Alhaji Daware said every beneficiary should pay the loan in kind.
“If you took the loan to grow rice, you pay with rice, if you took the loan to grow maize, you pay with maize; if you took the loan to grow soya beans, you pay with soya beans and so on.
“If, however, no commodity is found in your possession when the recovery committee comes you will be required to immediately pay in cash.
“Every beneficiary is expected to pay 50 percent of the loan at once, and then settle the balance of 50 percent in due course. However, if he or she pays 100 percent at once, it will be to his credit because he or she may be given twice the amount collected at the next disbursement,” the chairman explained.
He urged the beneficiaries to cooperate with the loan recovery committees and pay the loans to qualify for them for more.
Alhaji Daware warned the loan recovery committees against humiliating those who could not pay immediately.
“Be polite and persuasive in your approach to the recovery.”