CBN, DSS Tackle Smugglers, Impound 1,207 Bags Of Rice

The Central Bank of Nigeria has formed a working alliance with the Department of State Services to clampdown on merchants engaged in warehousing of smuggled rice.

The alliance has led to the seizure of 1,207 bags of smuggled rice and other items in Adamawa State.

The Branch Controller, CBN Yola, Jatau Satu, on Tuesday, disclosed that other items confisticated from the smugglers included 10 jerrycans of groundnut oil, 58 bottles of energy drinks and 83 bags of sugar.

Satu said smuggling of rice into the country was adversely affecting the nation’s ambition to be self-sufficient in rice production and also frustrating CBN’s Anchor Borrowers Programme.

Addressing journalists on behalf of the CBN governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, Satu said the bank had sought the intervention of DSS to help clampdown on smugglers of some banned items.

This, he added, followed the discovery by the bank that the unchecked activities of smugglers of rice caused by inadequate manning of the nation’s borders was frustrating loan repayment from beneficiaries of its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme.

He said, “The intervention of the Federal Government suffered some setbacks because of the work of smugglers.

“While we are trying to create employment within here, some individuals, for their personal pecuniary gains, are trying to frustrate the efforts of government by smuggling rice into the country.

“They are frustrating the recovery in our Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, creating dependency and discouraging our own banks.”