Those joined by the House for the investigation include: Comptroller-General of Customs, the Executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, the Director General of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria and Head of the Nigerian Quarantine Service and Heads of all other relevant Agencies to explain why they granted export license for food products prohibited from exportation.
The House resolution followed a motion sponsored Hon. Gaza Jonathan Ghefwi entitled, “need to determine why food products prohibited from exportation are being exported and also do not meet International Standards.”
While moving the motion, the lawmaker noted that “recent report that 72 tonnes of yam tubers that were exported sometime in June 2017 were rejected by the United States of America as they were found to have rotten upon arrival, thereby causing the nation great embarrassment as it is now obvious that produce approved for export by the government do not meet with world standards for exportation.”
The development, he said raised concern about the capacity of Ministries, Departments and Agencies charged with the responsibilities of conducting necessary checks on quality of goods billed for export to diligently carry out the assignments, and this also calls to question the safety of food approved for local consumption by those Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
According to him, “as part of measures to diversify our oil-dependent economy by tilting towards the export of agricultural products, the Federal Government launched the yam exportation program with a projection of earning $10 billion in foreign exchange in the course of the next four years.”
He added 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 added that a Bill for an Act to repeal the provisions of the Export Prohibition Act, had recently passed second reading in the House, stressing that “the Federal Government has, in the bid to increase agricultural products exportations, disregarded a subsisting law and carried on the exportation of some of the above goods expressly prohibited from exportation.”
The motion scaled through when it was put to a voice vote by Speaker, Honourable Yakubu Dogara who presided over the plenary session.