Home » Menace of Fake Products Worry Nigerians as Customs Seized Expired Rice

Menace of Fake Products Worry Nigerians as Customs Seized Expired Rice

BY TRICIA CHINYERE/
It is a common news that unscrupulous manufacturers and dealers smuggled in fake and substandard finished products into Nigeria. Stories about plastic or rubber rice come to the fore when Nigeria Customs Service  Federal Operations Unit, Zone  A’ disclosed a total number of seizures items amounting to over N 783m within three weeks.

Mohammed Garba Uba, the controller of the zone made this while taking journalists round the warehouses where the seized items were kept .

Garba, gave the details of the seizure as follows: 1,237 bags of 50kg foreign parboiled rice, 858 cartons of rechargeable inverter battery rock,1,104 cartons of medicament of different types, 308 pieces of used truck tyres,27 units of assorted vehicles, 137 bales of secondhand clothing and lace materials, 147 sacks of 10kg each and 120 parcels of 1kg each.

He said that the unit also impounded three containers with items worth N 303. 2m, due to what he called false declaration and the unit recovered N 252. 1m from duty payments and demand notices on general goods from importers who allegedly tried to outsmart officers at seaports,airports and border stations through wrong classification, transfer of value and short-change in duty payments meant for the Federal Government .

He further stated that the seizures made it a cumulative amount of N 783. 6m within the three weeks under review .

Garba added that 16 persons had been arrested in connection with the seizures while the pharmaceutical drugs and Indian hemp had been handed over to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency , respectively .

NAFDAC(National Agency For Food and Drug Administration and Control ) Deputy Director, Mr. Francis Ononiwu,explain that the agency expresses concerns over every product brought into the country and make sure it meet up the standard policy of Nigeria.

He urged all agencies to join hand to rid out counterfeited product in Nigeria.

NAFDAC Principal Staff Officer, Lawal Opeleyeru, while receiving over 150 bags of Indian hemp disclosed the efforts so far made at curtailing the activities of illicit drug consumption.

He expressed appreciation to NCS for the interception and with this it helps us to stop large quality in  circulation among the youth and reduce crime.

Investigations by SECURITY MONITOR’s depicts the existence of fake consumables. The medium is however investigating the existence of expired and substandard beers and soft drinks. This, Abdulrahman Aliagan, spokesman of the Nigeria Guild of Investigative Journalists, GIJ warns that Nigerians should be very inquisitive about products they buy with their money so as to get the value for the money spent buying foods and consumables. Aliagan in a telephone conversation told SECURITY MPONITOR that “giving information to the security and regulatory agencies is highly essential to our safety”. He therefore urge Nigerians to support customs and other government agencies to wards a counterfeit free society.

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