Friday, 2 December 2016
Govt to Ban Tomato Paste Imports
The
Federal Government will soon ban importation of foreign tomato pastes
into the country, the minister of agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh has
said.
Ogbeh
said based on a report by the National Agency for Food and
Administration and Control (NAFDAC), foreign tomato pastes imported into
Nigeria are not good.
He
spoke during the oversight visit of the House of Representatives
Committee on Agricultural Production and Services, chaired by Rep
Mohammed Tahir Monguno (APC, Borno) to the ministry yesterday in Abuja.
“The
Chinese are the ones messing us up on tomato paste. Each time Dangote
tries to produce, they lower their prices. There’s a report by NAFDAC on
the quality of foreign tomato pastes. The report is very bad.
“We
think we have every reason in that report to ban foreign tomato pastes
into the country. If you don’t ban it on health ground, you have to ban
it on any other ground,” he said.
When
members of the committee demanded to know the measures government was
taking to avert food crisis next year in view of the influx of
foreigners buying Nigerian grains, the minister said “It’s time to fill
our silos.
“The
export is huge now, but if you stop it, farmers will get very angry.
When you go round, they tell you they get so rich now. But if you stop
it and the prices fall, you discourage farmers. We’re in the market now
buying and storing.”
News BoI disburses N5bn to SMES in Agro-processing sector
The Bank of Industry on Wednesday put the funding support to about 242 entrepreneurs in the North-Central region at N5bn.
It said out of this amount, N1.5bn was disbursed to 62 SMEs in the agro-processing sector in the 2016 fiscal period alone.
The Managing Director, BOI, Mr. Waheed
Olagunju, gave the figure while speaking on the sidelines of the BoI’s
North-Central Regional Customer Forum in Abuja.
The forum, which was organised by the
bank to interface with its customers in the region, had as its
theme:”Nigeria’s industrialisation — our collective responsibility.”
Represented by the Divisional Head,
SME-North, Mr. Omar Shekarau, the BoI MD said the substantial part of
the N1.5bn loan was disbursed to the SMEs in the agro-processing
sub-sector.
He said, “So far, the BoI has disbursed
over N5bn to our customers in the North-Central region, comprising the
Federal Capital Territory, Nassarawa, Kogi, Benue and Niger states.
“In the current year, we have funded
small businesses in the region with over N1.5bn. Some of the loans are
channelled to agro-processing sub-sector.”
Omar, who commended customers in the
region for effective utilisation of the funds in their care, challenged
them to point out to the bank areas of improvement.
Also speaking at the forum, the
representative of the Country Director, United Nations Industrial
Development Organisation, Mr. Francis Ukoh, stressed the need to develop
the capacity of the SMEs operators in the country.
He said while much emphasis had been
placed on lack of access to finance, little attention was being placed
on capacity of the SMEs to utilise the funds effectively.
He stated that from findings, many
small-scale business operators who demanded for loans usually had
problems managing such funds because they lacked the needed capacity to
effectively utilise them.
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