About 688,793 metric tonnes of bulk wheat have been scheduled for imports and to be supplied to food markets across the country by the end of October 2024.

This significant influx of wheat is expected to play a crucial role in reducing the overall cost of food items, making essential products more affordable for citizens.

The food items loaded into seven vessels of various sizes started berthing at four seaports along the nation’s border between Wednesday, October 23, and Wednesday, October 30, 2024, according to a document obtained from the Nigerian Port Authority.

The seaports are the Apapa and Tincan ports in Lagos State, Calabar Port in Cross Rivers State, and Rivers Port in Rivers State.

However, efforts to ascertain if the Federal Government was involved in the importation of any of the wheat vessels were unsuccessful, as the federal ministries of agriculture and finance, as well as the Nigerian Customs Service, did not respond to multiple inquiries by our correspondent.

Recall that on July 8, 2024, the government announced a 150-day duty-free import window for food commodities to ensure a reduction in food inflation in Nigeria. The food commodities include maize, husked brown rice, wheat, and cowpeas.

It said the programme was meant to help cushion the effects of various factors contributing to food scarcity and price hikes in the country.

The idea was to remove or significantly reduce import duties and value-added tax to encourage an inflow of food imports and drive down consumer prices.

However, the scheme has not achieved its objectives due to the bureaucratic process and the failure of the Federal Ministry of Finance to publish a list of importers qualified to participate in the process.

Responding to a question asked at an inter-ministerial press briefing on October 1, 2024, the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, said the government had implemented a stop-gap measure to import wheat and corn.

He said the procured food items would soon arrive in Nigeria, emphasising that the importation measure was an interim measure so that it would not affect local food production.

He said, “In the meantime, there is a short-term measure to import food. The government has already ordered procured maize and wheat which is on its way.”

While the policy has not met expectations, data obtained by The PUNCH showed that imported food inflation increased by 8.97 per cent from the 806.0 average price index in July 2024 when the policy was announced and 878.3 in September.

On a year-to-date basis, this increase is a surge of 21.14 per cent from 692.6 in January 2024, indicating more reliance on foreign food products amid food supply shortages in the country.

The Central Bank of Nigeria also released N1.73tn for food item importation in six months to Nigerians for the importation of food items in the first and second quarters of 2024.

According to the NPA document, the first two vessels carrying 44,946 metric tonnes were meant to arrive at the Rivers port on Wednesday, October 23.

This is followed by another vessel carrying 18,800mt of wheat on Thursday, October 24 at the Calabar port.

On October 26, 2024, a vessel with a capacity of 37,450MT was scheduled to berth at the Tincan port in Lagos State.

The report showed that 37,644 metric tonnes of wheat was scheduled to arrive at Apapa port on Tuesday, October 29.

Similarly, the biggest shipment of 534,953MT was scheduled to arrive at Apapa port on Wednesday, October 30. On the same day, another 15,000MT vessels are scheduled to berth at the Calabar seaport.

Further findings showed that about five vessels had offloaded their content of bulk wheat at the Apapa, Tincan, and Calabar. The shipments arrived at the nation’s border between October 2 and October 18, 2024.

The document further noted that 19,264MT of feed corn was imported on Sunday, October 20. This means the seven vessels were scheduled to bring in 668,793 metric tonnes of wheat.

When contacted, the National Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Customs Service, Abdullahi Maiwada, said the service could not ascertain the owner of the imports until the vessels berth at seaports.

The Director of Information, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Joel Oruche, didn’t respond to multiple inquiries on the matter.

Also, the finance ministry spokesperson, Mohammed Manga, didn’t respond when contacted on the development.

Commenting on the zero-tax policy, a former president of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents, Chief Ernest Elochukwu, said the government announced the policy without putting measures in place for its safe implementation.

Elochukwu, speaking in an interview with ChannelsTV, said, “I have not seen anything remotely related to an importation under the duty-free window. My take is that the government just made the expression of an intention.

“In other words, something that will be heard by the masses and they are happy about it. But then the nitty-gritty of what needs to be done to implement it was not put in place.

“So even when it was announced in July, and then by August, we are now seeing a circular which has not been widely published. However, at the end of the day, I think that the right thing should have been to work out all this nitty gritty, including who will be qualified and the procedures to get it to start before making the announcement. Again, there is something about our system that is very awkward.

“We need to respond to the high prices of food stock. And so, for me, I think the right thing should have been, this intervention should last within some time, because whatever that is being imported is to intervene in a situation that is getting out of hand.”

Also, an economist, Adegboyega Adebajo, stated that the short-term measure has not met its goals because the necessary infrastructure for effective implementation is lacking.

He said, “We need to bear in mind that it was supposed to be a short-term, quick-stop measure. It was never intended to be long-term, but what we’ve experienced is a situation where you have a policy announcement and then there’s no infrastructure to carry that policy out in terms of effective implementation. One thing is that there are laws and there are parameters around which the government agencies involved will typically operate.

“These perhaps had not been thought through or taken care of before the announcement was made. And like you just said, there was a gap up till August before the letter was issued, but I guess again we have a situation where the agencies that ought to see that this policy is properly implemented were not quite ready for it. And it goes back to having to think through decisions before they’re announced.

“There are economic constraints here, okay, so if you’re importing, you’re going to require foreign exchange. Therefore, there’s going to be a significant demand for dollars. And the key thing is, who are the people to import? What sort of qualifications will there be in determining who imports?

“There are already people importing rice, there are people importing maize, and people are importing most of the food items already listed, but they do so for a profit. And the thing is, they can import, so perhaps it would have been much more ideal to be able to achieve economies of scale.” (PUNCH)