NFA issued rice import permit to bungling co-op

THE National Food Authority issued a permit to import rice to a farmers’ cooperative in 2013 even after the group had skirted the guidelines for importation, NFA officials admitted yesterday.

The NFA officials made the admission after Sen. Ralph Recto took them to task for issuing permits to cooperatives after the arrival of the rice shipments despite a Senate recommendation in 2012 against this practice.

Officials said the NFA stopped issuing post-arrival import permits only this month.

“Yes, your honor,” NFA Assistant Administrator Joseph de la Cruz said when asked by Recto if the agency had let the cooperatives get away.

Quizzed by Recto, De la Cruz admitted that the NFA decided to grant an import permit to the San Carlos Multi-Purpose Cooperative despite its bungling of the import procedures.

The cooperative is facing smuggling charges in the Department of Justice.

According toDe laCruz, the cooperative submitted to the NFA documents to secure an import permit on Oct. 1, 2013. The NFA advised the cooperative to go to the the Land Bank of the Philippines first for the processing of its documents.

The NFA later found out that the cooperative did not open a letter of credit with Landbank, but instead made a direct payment to the supplier, bypassing the Landbank, De la Cruz said.

The cooperative told the NFA that the Landbank refused to process its documents, admitting that “they committed a mistake, they didn’t follow the guidelines and they asked for an apology,” he said.

But recognizing that it was a legitimate importer and had paid advance tariff and duties, the NFA granted the cooperative an import permit, De la Cruz said.

“So onOct. 7, we issued the import permit to San Carlos Multi-Purpose Coop,” he said.

Recto commented: “Historically, we’ve seen this already. It would appear from documents that the NFA was letting these co-ops get away. Like we said, we know this already. Hopefully, this won’t happen again.”

After conducting an inquiry into rice smuggling, the Senate recommended that the NFA stop issuing permits after the rice shipment had arrived.

At the resumption of the agriculture committee’s inquiry into rice smuggling, Sen. Cynthia Villar agreed with Recto’s observations, and pressed De la Cruz on why the NFA did not follow the Senate recommendation.

De la Cruz replied: “We made the corrections. When we discovered the findings of customs, the subsequent import permits of San Carlos were not issued. They didn’t consummate their allocation.”

Customs Commissioner John Sevilla confirmed filing smuggling charges against executives of the cooperative in the Department of Justice for importing P34million worth of rice without the required permit.