- The state government attributed the absence of the bags of rice from its mill in open market to two factors.
The Lagos State Government has opened up on the challenges it is facing in mass-producing rice from its rice mill and selling them to residents of the State.
The state government attributed the absence of the bags of rice from its mill in open market to two factors.
It would be recalled that former President Muhammadu Buhari in January 2023 unveiled the two million metric tonnes per hour Lagos Rice Mill located in Imota with high expectations from the public.
The Rice Mill dubbed as the third largest in the world has the capacity to produce 2.5m bags of 50kg rice annually and generate 250,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had said the rice mill is a 2x16MTPH standing on an area of 8.5Ha land with an annual paddy requirement of over 240,000MT to produce 2.5 million bags of 50kg rice per annum.
However since the commissioning of the mill, Lagosians hardly see the bags of rice produced from the mill in the open market even as the state through other private mills had to subsidise rice for some segments of the population
Speaking on the matter, The state commissioner for information and strategy, Gbenga Omotosho, blamed saboteurs for the absence of the rice in the market.
According to him, some people would buy the rice and re-bag them as foreign rice to be sold outside the state.
He also cited the dearth of paddies in the country, noting that it is hampering the capacity of the mill to meet local consumption of rice.
Omotosho, who made this known in an interview on Mainland FM, explained that the scarcity of paddies is greatly impeding the state’s mill ability to hit its production capacity.
He also condemned the activities of those he called ‘saboteurs’ who buy the locally produced rice and re-bag them as foreign rice to be sold outside the state.
According to him, due to climate change and other factors causing scarcity of paddies, the rice mills across the country are struggling to operate.
“In every part of Nigeria, there are small, small mills and because of the change in weather condition and so many other things, we do not have enough paddies,” he said.
According to him, Lagos State Government is trying as much as possible “to ensure that Lagosians are not short of rice.”
“But there are saboteurs. The rice coming in from the Rice Mill in Imota, you would see some people going to re-bag them and put foreign name on such bags and then take them out of Lagos,” he said.
He added, “That’s is why it is very difficult to see the rice as much as we would have loved to see them.”
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