Oyo Govt/COVID-19: Customs Gave Us Contaminated Rice, Rejects 1,800 Bags
Oyo State government has rejected 1,800 bags of rice donated by the federal government through the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS, saying the grains are contaminated and not healthy for consumption.
The Executive Adviser to Governor Seyi Makinde on Agribusiness, Dr Debo Akande, made this known to newsmen four days after receiving the grains which are supposed to be palliatives for the COVID-19.
Akande said the grains were infested by weevil and other pests, adding that the rejection was for the good interest of the people’s well being.
The state government ordered for the return of the rice to the Customs and expects a replacement from the federal government.
The bags of rice were handed over the to the state government by the Comptroller, Oyo/Osun command of the Nigeria Customs Service, Mrs Helen Ngozi.
Osun and Ekiti states had received 600 bags each.
Akande told newsmen, “We received this items from the Federal Government via the federal ministry of humanitarian affairs and we brought them here to the warehouse and in it is in the process of further inspection, that we discovered that almost all the grains of rice has been infested by weevil and other pests.
“On that basis, we formed a committee to inspect it again so that we are really sure of what we have received and we think this rice is not is not consumable for human being.
“As such, such material cannot be distributed as part of palliatives in the state. We don’t want to start providing solution to a problem and then create another problem. We have done random selection we see that similar thing applies across board and the committee has agreed to return to its source. And if there is any replacement of good quality that will be sent to us, we will be glad to receive it.
“A good number of food items have been received by the food security committee. Even before we received those ones, we have received good number of products from the good citizens of the state and we have added with the one the state government is putting its funding into and that will be distributed in a couple of days. What we have done is that we put a robust system in place for distribution and that have finaliSed with.
“We are returning all the 1,800 bags of rice. We initially assumed that it was just some part of it that was infested but some commissioners from five or six ministries came with me to inspect and we realised that it is not just some but quite a lot of them were infested. We do quality control of all that we receive it is just that that was received from the federal government that we found infested.”
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