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From George Onyejiuwa, Owerri
The National President of Vegetable/Edible Oil Producers of Nigeria, Chief Okey Ikoro, has accused the Nigeria Customs and the other enforcement agencies of responsibility for the daily influx of smuggled vegetable oil into the country.
Chief Ikoro, who is the Managing Director/CEO of Camela Oil Limited, alleged that the failure of the enforcement agencies to do their constitutional duties of stopping prohibited vegetable oils into the country has impacted negatively on the local production.
He stated this at a conference in Owerri, the Imo state capital, yesterday, insisting that the Nigeria Customs were responsible for the influx of prohibited vegetable oil into the country. “If prohibited products are crossing the borders, it means that some people, somewhere, have compromised their jobs because the volume of the smuggled vegetable oils is in the hundreds of thousands in every single market in Nigeria. Last week our members arrested three long trucks carrying 300 tons coming into Nigeria at Badagry. The question is how did they cross the Customs officers at the border? It was not in the night, but in broad daylight. It means some people are not going to job. It means they are collecting money to allow them to cross”.
Continuing, “Also, NAFDAC should be alive to their duties. Before, NAFDAC used to go for local market drives to check the origin of products. Every product displayed at the market has a label and origin if it is produced in Nigeria. But NAFDAC has relaxed and won’t do that again. They are no longer going to the markets to ask questions or to confiscate contrabands like smuggled vegetable/edible oil from Malaysia without tests and certifications. If they have been doing this, the menace will stop. The worst is the Standard Organisation of Nigeria. Today, Nigeria doesn’t have any standard because they are not setting any standard in the country. I urge the federal government to change the personnel of the agencies if they are no longer able to carry out their duties effectively”.
He lamented that local producers are retrenching workers and closing factories as they could not compete with cheap imported vegetable/oils that has flooded the Nigeria markets, even when it is prohibited.
