The strident cry of the country’s Indigenous Seafood stakeholders against the unbridled importation of unsafe, unregistered, unwholesome frozen foods into the country deserves a prompt and positive response from the relevant agencies of the federal government. Products so imported include chicken, turkey, fish and gizzards.
The stakeholders’ grouse has become necessary because such nefarious activities do set the national economy back by a whopping one trillion naira on yearly basis! According to Dr. Ayoola Oduntan, the president of the Poultry Association of Nigeria, the frequent smuggling of frozen chicken into Nigeria was a great economic constraint for the sector as it was losing N532 billion annually in revenue as at 2015. It could be worse today. That is what the experts posit. We can no longer sustain this in a country reeling from the economic recession.
In his words: “While the local demand for frozen chicken is above two million metric tons annually, Nigerian farmers are only able to produce 300,000 metric tons, leaving a wide gap of more than 1.7 million metric tons. Out of this figure, smuggled chicken accounts for 1.2 million metric tons annually.”
Apart from the huge sums lost, local producers are grossly shortchanged. Worrisome is the issue of health hazards posed by the continued consumption of such products. According to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), poultry products smuggled into the country were partly responsible for several cases of digestive and intestinal health issues among consumers, based on researches. Such smuggled frozen fish are badly packaged and are not subject to fisheries/NAFDAC inspection and control.
Though the Federal Government had announced several measures to curtail the activities of smugglers since to curtail the activities of smugglers since The year 2000.Amongst such is the matching mandate given to Nigerian Customs Services to protect the nation’s borders against smuggling of banned goods, including food items. The bitter truth, however, is that a combination of factors such as porous borders, alleged corruption among Customs officers, as well as the high level of ignorance of not a few consumers who refer everything foreign have led to this sorry pass.
On its part, concerned stakeholders in the fish sub-sector have called on both the executive and legislative arms of government to stop the smuggling of frozen fish in gross violations of the ECOWAS trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS) and protocol by the Republic of Benin through outland borders.
With ECOWAS Trade Agreements, goods and services originating and produced in member states to another are duty-free. The entire Sub- region is taken as a single economic zone thereby facilitating liberal trade among member states similar to what obtains amongst members of the European Union (EU). Unfortunately, recent empirical evidence show that the Benin port is being used as a transit port for frozen fish produced in other non- ECOWAS nations and smuggled into Nigeria.
With ECOWAS Trade Agreements, goods and services originating and produced in member states to another are duty-free. The entire Sub- region is taken as a single economic zone thereby facilitating liberal trade among member states similar to what obtains amongst members of the European Union (EU). Unfortunately, recent empirical evidence show that the Benin port is being used as a transit port for frozen fish produced in other non- ECOWAS nations and smuggled into Nigeria.
This unpatriotic trend has become a direct attack on Nigeria’s fragile economy and revenue generating streams. The implications include the huge loss of revenue that would have been accruable to the Federal Government, in form of Customs Duty payable and other surcharges. This also subverts the nation’s policy for the regulation of frozen fish imports and the prohibition of farm fish through the quota policy.
The other challenge is that frozen fish so imported according to our laws and policies are hardly sold. This is traceable to the nefarious activities of importers. It is also inimical to the national strategy for backward integration. That is more so as it is aimed to increase local production capacity towards achieving self-sufficiency in our fisheries sector.
The other challenge is that frozen fish so imported according to our laws and policies are hardly sold. This is traceable to the nefarious activities of importers. It is also inimical to the national strategy for backward integration. That is more so as it is aimed to increase local production capacity towards achieving self-sufficiency in our fisheries sector.
Besides, prohibited species such as catfish and tilapia are continuously smuggled into the country. This constrains our local fish farmers from selling their farmed fish. This trend negates part of our national strategy for increased capacity and production of fish to reduce the import and save a lot of foreign exchange. It was for this reason that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and other stakeholders agreed to regulate the fish import sector with a view of encouraging domestic production and protect our fish farms from the more advanced fish producing nations.
Ordinarily, goods and services produced outside the ECOWAS if transited through member states must comply with the extant import guidelines. This relates to their importation as if directly imported into the member nation. It is surprising, therefore, that Nigerian stakeholders should be accusing the Republic of Benin for the flagrant violation of such international laws. This should be investigated.
The flip side though, is that the huge patronage of foreign frozen food items by Nigerians has unveiled the yawning gap which currently exists between supply and demand for them. This loophole can be effectively bridged by smart investors. From local farmers through food technologist, machinists to marketers, opportunities abound for higher productivity, slaughtering and de-feathering machinery of fowls and turkey. Others include packaging and storage facilities as well as marketing strategies to attract people to patronize the costlier but more hygienic and nutritious products.
There must therefore, be holistic and integrated agricultural policies to stimulate local production, empower the stakeholders with start-up funds, steady power supply and protect them from the mindless menace of the criminal smugglers.
