The Federal Government in November sold milled rice to staff of various media organisations in Kaduna at N40,000.00 per 50kg bag......Read The Full Article>>.....Read The Full Article>>
The exercise, according to the federal government was to ameliorate the prevailing food crisis and as well cushion the effects of high cost of food commodities in the country.
The media outlets were allocated 149 bags and every buyer was screened by officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the federal ministry of agriculture for the purpose of transparency and accountability.
Aside from each member of the media that bought the rice per bag, civil servants from different ministries and agencies also got their own allocations at their respective offices.
All the buyers accessed the grains from the Point of Sale (POS) with their Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and NIN.
Speaking on behalf of media organisations in Kaduna, the Chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kaduna State Council, Hajiya Asma’u Yawo Halilu, expressed gratitude to the federal government for subsidising the rice at N40,000.00 per bag.
Halilu noted that, “comparing this price to the soaring market price, one has no option than to thank the government for the supply of the rice”.
She however advised that the government should endeavour to make the exercise a continuous one, “so that people who did not get to buy in the initial exercise will get the opportunity to buy”.
It would be recalled that the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, had earlier revealed in Abuja during the flagg off of the distribution exercise that the kind gesture was made possible at the expense and directives of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, ”who does not want Nigerian citizens to go to bed hungry, and in his wisdom deemed it important to initiate the food intervention”.
The minister recalled that in the recent past, precisely aftermath of COVID-19, and due to the Russian-Ukraine war, the climate change amidst other localized factors/challenges, food prices, farm yields, food chains, were distorted globally and Nigeria is not an exception.
According to him, “this has led to increased concern and risk of food insecurity and general decline in the standard of living globally”.
“This includes one man and one 50kg of rice, others are the verification of intended beneficiaries using relevant identification mediums such as the National Identification Number (NIN) and phone numbers to forestall multiple access to the food commodity by fraudulent individuals at the detriment of other citizens”.
