Umza not into smuggling of rice – Maifata

Mohammed Maifata, chairman, Umza International Farms Limited, has denied the involvement of his company in smuggling of rice through land borders.

Reacting to a report by Premium Times, an online medium, headlined: “Inside the massive fraud in Nigeria’s N117bn rice import quota scheme,” Maifata insisted that contrary to the report, his company had contributed immensely in enhancing the country’s local rice production through its Kano plant.

He pointed out that some foreign and local merchants who were all out to thwart the success being recorded in the country’s rice value chain sponsored the report.

In a statement made available to journalists in Abuja, Maifata, who doubles as the National President of Rice Processors Association of Nigeria (RIPAN), said: “It is most disheartening that Premium Times, an online newspaper, claimed to have conducted an investigation into the alleged massive fraud in the rice import quota and even went ahead to publish their falsehood without even respecting the basic tenets of journalism of hearing from the other side who were maligned by their malicious falsehood before publication.”

Faulting the report on the capacity of his company, he said the milling capacity of his rice plant was 72,000 metric tons per annum and not 30,000 metric tons as claimed in the report.

The company, he said, is in the process of increasing its milling capacity to about 120,000 metric tons per annum.

He challenged the online newspaper to a working tour of the rice milling plant in Kano at the company’s own expense, in company of independent experts from any part of the world, to determine the true capacity of the mill.

Shedding light on the investments of his company in the rice value chain, he said Umza Farms had been partnering the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the last three years in the training of over 10,000 rice paddy farmers.

“Our partnership with Rice Farmers Association in Kebbi State is another area where Umza Farms has proven its investments in rice value chain where we are currently working with farmers, especially from Suru Local Government Area in the cultivation of paddy.

“Umza International Farms has also secured the approval from Niger State government for 11,000 hectares of land in Agaie Local Government Area of the state for its backward integration programme,” he said.

Describing the report that Umza has been importing foreign rice from Thailand as laughable, he said the record of his company on the importation of rice was well documented with both the Nigerian Customs Service and other relevant organisations.

“It is also very important that we state at this juncture that Umza Farms has only imported rice in occasions where the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development had genuine fears about the capacity of the local millers to meet the local rice consumption/demand and had encouraged the local rice millers to import rice in order to bridge the gap between what is locally produced and what is consumed.

“Outside these occasions where Umza Farms is duly licensed to import rice for national interest, Umza Farms has not and never imported rice as part of its core business plan. Umza Farms is strictly a local rice milling plant and would never dabble into rice importation as its ordinary business.

“It is so unimaginable to think that Umza Farms could be waging a war against its own business going by the falsehood perpetrated by Premium Times when it maliciously and literally stated in the said online publication that Umza Farms is involved in rice smuggling,” Maifata said.