Stakeholders in the rice sector have lamented the rising cost of the produce in spite of the Federal Government’s tax waiver.

The stakeholders disclosed this in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos.

NAN reports that the Federal Government temporarily waived import duties and Value Added Tax on rice and other essential food items to help curb food inflation and ease economic pressures on citizens from July 15, 2024 to Dec. 31, 2024.

The eligible items include husked brown rice, sorghum, millet, maize, wheat, and beans.

Specifically, the Nigeria Customs Service, on Aug. 14, released implementation guidelines that temporarily waives all import (and associated levy) taxes for rice, sorghum, millet, corn, wheat, and beans until Dec. 31, 2024.

The Chairman Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Lagos State chapter, Mr Raphael Hunsa, urged the government to engage local rice farmers than overdependence on import of the produce.

“The tax waiver is being mishandled that is why we are not seeing its impact in cutting down the price of rice in our markets.

“The Federal Government is trying its best to do something about the food inflation in the country. It is just that when these provisions gets to the middlemen, before getting to the grassroots there are discrepancies.

“The government should call together the stakeholders in the rice sector to address the hike in the price of the produce.

“Let the government work together with the stakeholders for the sustainability, availability and sufficiency of rice locally.

“These set of businessmen that the government is giving license to import rice with tax waivers are just working for their own benefits.

“When the government partners with RIFAN and all stakeholders in the rice sector, it will get to the grassroots and the price of rice will drastically drop,” Hunsa said.

According to him, there will be enough rice if farmers are cultivating and harvesting regularly.

“When we have enough rice farmers cultivating and harvesting rice regularly, things will work well and there will be no need to import rice to country.

“The countries where we are importing rice if they do not cultivate rice then we will feed them and who will feed Nigerians?

“Let the government focus its attention on the local rice sector and then things will work well,” he said.

On his part, Mr Akin Alabi, agriculture expert and co-founder Corporate Farmers International, called for monitoring and compliance of the tax waiver at the nation’s borders.

“The government has effected tax waiver on rice, and that has been done many months ago. However, the reason why it is not effective is because there is difference between pronouncement and action.

“Now, the question is, when the Federal Government pronounces it, will government ensure it is actionable? That is the question. Are those tax waiver actionable at the borders?

“So, the government needs to work effectively with customs and ensure that the pronouncement of tax waiver on rice and other essential commodities is duly effected for the citizens.

So that we can get these food items at affordable prices.

“The festive season is just few days away and to be realistic, we do not know what the price of rice, a staple, might be in the next couple of days because of the rush that is going to come with it.

“So, government needs to tailor down the effectiveness of the tax waiver pronunciation to reflect on food prices,” Alabi said.

Also speaking, Mr John Nwabueze, foodstuff trader at Alimosho area of Lagos State, said the tax waiver on rice is not evident as the price of the produce is on the increase daily.

“The price of short grain rice is at N86,000 compared with N70,000 and below we sold two months ago. While the long grain rice now sells from N120,000 and above as against N80,000 sold two months ago.

“We heard the government has granted tax waiver for rice importation, but it is only in the news we see that, the case in the market is different, the price keep soaring.

“If the tax waiver on rice is enforced we will see it in the price of the produce, but they can say it and when we go to the market, we see something different.

“The price of rice may likely go up during the Christmas season but if the tax waiver is really implemented the price of a 50kg bag of rice can go as low as N50,000 to N65,000,” Nwabueze said.

Mrs Ada Okoli, a consumer, decried the current price of the produce in the market.

Okoli called for government’s intervention to address the persistent hike in the price of the produce and others ahead of the yuletide.

The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has announced that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has approved three additional grades in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing efforts, marking the fifth progress report since Nigeria was greylisted in February 2023.

FATF, established in 1995, is the global body tasked with leading actions to combat money laundering, terrorism financing, and proliferation financing.

The organisation greylisted Nigeria due to increasing capital inflows and deficiencies in addressing money laundering, terrorism, and arms financing.

In a statement issued on Sunday by the NFIU’s Strategic Communications Office in Abuja, the FATF granted the approval during a meeting of the Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) Technical Commission, which took place between November 17 and 23, 2024, in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Statutorily, Nigeria is now compliant (C) or largely compliant (LC) in 37 out of the 40 FATF recommendations, leaving three more to address.

The Chief Executive Officer of the NFIU, Hafsat Abubakar Bakari, who also serves as Nigeria’s National Correspondent (NC) for ECOWAS (GIABA), led Nigeria’s delegation to the meeting.

Included in the delegation were representatives from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering (SCUML), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Ministry of Justice (FMOJ), the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), and the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA).

President-elect Donald Trump’s hardline immigration proposals — including a controversial mass deportation plan — could prove economically damaging, analysts say, with US sectors that rely heavily on foreign workers like agriculture and construction especially hard hit.

US authorities estimate that there are around 11 million unauthorized people living in the United States, the vast majority of whom come from Mexico.

Around 8.3 million unauthorized people were in the labor force in 2022, according to a recent estimate from the Pew Research Center. That was equivalent to just under five percent of the overall workforce.

“Today our cities are flooded with illegal aliens,” Trump said on the campaign trail earlier this year, adding: “Americans are being squeezed out of the labor force and their jobs are taken.”

The reality, however, is more complex; many of the sectors that could be the hardest-hit have long struggled to attract US workers.

“The construction and agriculture industries would lose at least one in eight workers, while in hospitality, about one in 14 workers would be deported due to their undocumented status,” the non-profit American Immigration Council (AIC) said in a recent report on Trump’s deportation plans.

The deportations would also impact “more than 30 percent” of plasterers, roofers, and painters, along with a quarter of housekeeping cleaners, according to the report.

– Economic impact –

A recent joint study by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Brookings Institution, and the Niskanen Center estimated that Trump’s immigration plans could curb US GDP growth in 2025 by as much as 0.4 percentage points.

The impact on growth would primarily come from the direct effect of having fewer foreign workers producing goods and services, with an additional, smaller decline in output coming from less consumer spending by those groups.

In such a scenario, the authors said, “legal immigration is slightly below where it was during the pre-pandemic Trump administration, while enforcement and deportation efforts reach levels not seen in recent decades.”

A total of 3.2 million people would be deported during Trump’s term under this projection, with net migration — arrivals minus departures — falling from 3.3 million in 2024 to negative 740,000 in 2025, boosted by a sharp rise in voluntary emigration.

In a more extreme scenario, which analysts say is highly unlikely, the impact on growth could be much more significant.

A recent Peterson Institute for International Economics report modelled the impact of expelling all 8.3 million unauthorized immigrant workers.

It predicted that economic growth by 2028 could be 7.4 percent beneath baseline estimates, “meaning no US net economic growth occurs over the second Trump term because of this policy alone.”

At the same time, US inflation would be 3.5 percentage points higher by 2026 than it would otherwise be, as employers raised wages to attract American workers.

But even in a less significant scenario, mass deportations could push up prices, analysts say.

Trump’s immigration plans “could lead to big price increases in certain sectors of the economy, but could also lead to inflation,” Michael Strain, AEI’s director of economic policy studies, told AFP.

But mass deportations’ aggregate effect on inflation would likely be small, economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics wrote in an investor note, “with upward pressure in sectors like agriculture and construction partly offset by weaker demand in general and slower inflation in some other areas, such as housing.”

– Obstacles –

Most analysts expect legal, logistical and financial challenges will blunt the most extreme proposals — as they did during the first Trump administration — with the end result being that net migration eases modestly next year compared to pre-pandemic levels.

“We expect tighter policy to lower net immigration to 750k per year, moderately below the pre-pandemic average of 1 (million) per year,” economists at Goldman Sachs wrote in an investor note.

“We’re sceptical that the kind of deportations proposed on the campaign could occur,” Oxford Economics chief US economist Ryan Sweet wrote in a note to clients.

A report from the Auditor-General of the Federation has uncovered over N197.72 billion in irregular contract payments across multiple ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs).

The Auditor-General’s Annual Report on Non-Compliance and Internal Control Weaknesses, covering the period from 2020 to 2021, exposes these breaches and calls for corrective action to recover misappropriated funds.

Among the most concerning findings was the award of contracts worth N7.39 billion in breach of financial regulations. These irregularities, which occurred across 32 MDAs, violated Paragraph 2921(i) of the Financial Regulations (2009), which mandates open competitive bidding.

The Rural Electrification Agency in Abuja recorded the largest irregularity at N2.12 billion, while the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPM) had the smallest irregularity of N11.72 million.

The report also revealed that N167.59 billion was paid for jobs or contracts that were either partially executed or not executed at all, violating Paragraph 708 of the Financial Regulations.

The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) was responsible for the largest portion of this, amounting to N100 billion, while the National Centre for Women Development had the smallest irregularity at N2.17 million.

“The sum of N167,592,177,559.40 (one hundred and sixty-seven billion, five hundred and ninety-two million, one hundred and seventy-seven thousand, five hundred and fifty-nine naira, forty kobos) was the number of payments for jobs/contracts not executed by 31 ministries, departments and agencies.

“The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc., Abuja, has the highest amount of N100,000,000,000.00 (one hundred billion naira), while the National Centre for Women Development has the least amount of N2,171,766.44 (two million, one hundred and seventy-one thousand, seven hundred and sixty-six naira, forty-four kobo).”

Additionally, the report uncovered N20.33 billion in contracts awarded in violation of due process across 24 MDAs. These violations were found to contravene Section 16(21) of the Public Procurement Act (PPA) 2007, which requires strict adherence to procurement plans and mandatory approvals before contracts are awarded. NSPM accounted for the largest share of these violations, totalling N14.14 billion.

A further N2.41 billion was found to have been paid for contracts exceeding financial thresholds without the required “Certificate of No Objection” from the Bureau of Public Procurement. This irregularity affected five MDAs, with Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital recording the highest at N1.06 billion.

The report categorised these findings as “cross-cutting,” indicating that they were systemic and affected at least four different MDAs. It criticised the weak internal controls within these agencies and emphasised the urgent need for stronger enforcement of financial regulations.

The Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly have been notified of the audit’s findings, which include recommendations to ensure accountability and prevent similar issues from arising in the future.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says one out of four individuals between ages 15 years and above would like to leave their communities permanently or at least temporarily.

The NBS said this in its General Household Survey-Panel (GHS-Panel) Wave 5  2023/2024 unveiled in Abuja on Thursday.

The report showed that more men aged 15 years and above wanted to leave their communities, representing 31. 2 per cent compared to women at 19.3 per cent.

It said that among age groups, 34.5 per cent of people between 20 and 30 years of age would like to migrate.

“This was followed by those between ages 15 and 18 at 26.9 per cent and those between ages 31 and 64 at 25 per cent.

“Among people ages 65 and above, only 6.5 per cent said that they would like to leave their communities.”

The report said that among those who would like to migrate, 35.3 per cent would like to move to Abuja and 26.6 per cent would like to relocate to another country.

The report revealed that those in the Southern zones predominantly reported that they would like to relocate to another country, while individuals in the Northern zones preferred to move to Abuja or another state.

The NBS said that nationally, 45.4 per cent of households had at least one former household member who had relocated within and outside the country.

According to the report, half of those former household members are females.

The report said that marriage was the main reason why former household members had relocated at 28.2 per cent, followed by those who had gone to live with relatives or friends at 21.2 per cent.

“This was followed by those who went to look for/start a new job or business at 14.6 per cent .

It showed that urban households were less likely to have a former household member who had migrated, with a reported share of 37 per cent compared to 49.3 per cent of rural area households.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the GHS-Panel is  Nigeria’s nationally representative longitudinal household survey which began in 2010 and had implemented five waves of the survey.

The panel nature of the data enables tracking household-level changes in critical areas of welfare, work, and socio-economic outcomes over time, yielding insights for policy. 

The Federal Government says it will collaborate with the World Bank to provide decent jobs directly or indirectly to no fewer than 10 million youths within the next five years.

Mr Ayodele Olawande, Minister of Youth Development, communicated this when he hosted the World Bank team lead by Mr Maheshwor Shrestha, World Bank Economist, on Thursday in Abuja.

Olawande said that the forum would enable him to update the team on the various activities and engagements of the ministry in the past months.

“The focus of the ministry has been to achieve the establishment of a strong coordinated mechanism for all youth intervention focused on economic inclusion and we want data to inform all we do.

”Provide decent jobs directly or indirectly for at least, 10 million youths within the next five years and ensure that every youth is proficient in at least, two income generating skills.

“Expand our credit support funds by 50 million dollars to reach more young people, including businesses led by going women, people with disabilities and young people in rural areas.’’

The minister said that the current reality showed that 60 million youths were in the labour bracket and an additional 5.5 million would join the labour market every year.

He said that almost 58 per cent of Nigeria’s informal workforce was young people.

“Despite these data, we see these opportunities for the development of the country if harnessed effectively,” he said.

Olawande said that the challenges hinged on deficient skills for job market, relevant vocational training and lack of access to capital and funds safety with infrastructural deficit.

In his speech, Shrestha said that no fewer than 60 million youths in Nigeria were underage at the moment.

According to him, it means that Nigeria needs to create enough opportunities for a huge pool of youths that are already there and who will be joining the way.

He said that every year, 5 and a half million would reach paid working age.

Shrestha said that only seven per cent of the youths were engaged in paid jobs.

“And even those are not permanent jobs; there are still informal jobs.

“So, if we look at overall, 93 per cent of the youths are working in an informal sector.’’

According to him, the bank is figuring out how to improve safety net support towards such people.

“What we are doing now is to think about how the framework applies at the state level.

“So, I think we are starting to work with the Governors’ Board of Secretaries to see how this approach applies at the state levels,” he said.