The committees were
directed to invite the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu
Ogbeh, to explain why the law prohibiting the exportation of yam tubers was
flagrantly disregarded, even as the yams were rejected upon delivery, because
several of them going bad.
The House of
Representatives on Wednesday mandated its Committee on Agricultural Production
and Services as well as the Committee on Customs and Excise to probe the export
of rotten yams to the United States.
Also to be invited are the
Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (retd), the Executive Director
of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, Segun Awolowo, the Director General
of the Standards Organization of Nigeria, Osita Aboloma and Head of the
Nigerian Quarantine Service.
The House gave this mandate
following the adoption of a motion entitled: “Need to Determine Why Food
Products Prohibited from Exportation are Exported and also do not Meet
International Standards”, sponsored by Gaza Jonathan Ghefwi.
THEWILL recalls that the
federal government had, in June, exported a large consignment of yams to Europe
and America, seeking to improve revenue from non-oil export.
But leading the debate on
the motion, Ghefwi faulted the explanation given by the minister
on Tuesday that the yams
went bad as a result of the long distance between Nigeria and the US.
He wondered why the current
administration chose to break the law by overlooking the fact that, the
schedule of the Export (Prohibition) Act, Cap. E22, Laws of the Federation of
Nigeria, 2004 lists Beans, Cassava tuber, Maize, Rice, Yam tuber and their product
derivatives as goods absolutely prohibited from exportation from Nigeria.
The lawmaker insisted that
it would have been better the federal government followed due process by
waiting for the bill seeking to repeal the provisions of the Export Prohibition
Act, to be passed by the National Assembly, rather than flout an existing law.
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