The Nigeria Customs Service said it has generated revenue of N1,178,720,376 from rice imports through the land borders in October and November 2015.

During the same period, Customs said a total quantity of rice imported through the land borders stood at 17.596 metric tonnes.

The Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd), who disclosed this at a strategy session, also reviewed the revenue performance of the service during the year.

Indeed, only two months ago, the Comptroller-General of Customs had approved the removal of the restriction placed on importation of rice through the land borders.

The removal, according to the Customs, was predicated on the large scale rice smuggling through the land borders, resulting to huge revenue loss and distortions in the price of the item in the local markets.

A statement signed by the Public relations Officer of the Customs, Wale Adeniyi, on behalf of the Comptroller General, said the huge revenue is a confirmation of the Customs’ position on the need to remove restrictions placed on importation of rice through land borders.

“The huge collection in just two months has vindicated our position. If we had stuck to our previous directive, this much quantum of rice would still have been smuggled anyway, and we would have lost over a billion naira revenue at this critical period of our economic downtown,” the statement said.

The breakdown of the rice imports shows that Idiroko border in Ogun Command has the largest volume of 8,276 metric tonnes, with a collection of N555, 152,344 in duties; Katsina borders came next with 3,636 metric tonnes imported and total revenue of N242, 985,626 was collected during the same period.

A total of 2.156 metric tonnes was imported through the land borders of Oyo/Osun command, generating a total revenue of N144, 278,025.

The Seme border had 2,140 metric tonnes passing through it with revenue generation of N143,349,658; Sokoto 602 metric tonnes with N40,162,759; Kano/Jigawa had 470 metric tonnes with N31,536,148; Adamawa/Taraba, 248 metric tonnes with N16,545,422 generated and Niger/Kwara/Kogi having 68 metric tonnes with N4,710,394

Source: http://www.mynewswatchtimesng.com/customs-generate-n1-2bn-from-rice-imports-in-two-months/

why are we importing rice when we have young and upcoming farmers??

While Nigerians could have earned N5b within the same 2 months from rice cultivation, processing and many value addition from rice itself and its 'waste products'!

Great

Your source sha, 36% arable land and we can't feed ourselves. I just wish "our oil" dries up today.

We could have saved ten times the amount if we didn't have to import rice.