2.4m bags p/h rice mill will crash price by Dec. – Lawmakers

By Ezurike Ugochukwu

The Lagos State House of Assembly has said the state owned Rice Mill at Imota, Ikorodu would collapse the prices of local rice in the state if it becomes operational by December as promised.

The Chairman House Committee on Agriculture, Mr Kehinde Joseph, stated this when he led other committee members on an inspection tour and oversight function to the site.

Joseph said there is a need for the mill to start operation in order to reduce the price of local rice in the country, maintained that by the time the rice mill becomes operational in December, it would reduce prices of local rice beyond the current N20,000 price.
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The committee he said was carrying out the oversight to ensure that the percentage of work so far done is commensurate with the money released so far by the state government.

The earlier the mill, becomes operational, he said, the better it would make life easier for Nigerians in the area of rice supply.

The lawmakers inspected the storage facility, per boiling plant, boiling dryer, staff quarters and water storage plant to ascertain the level of completion.

The chairman said, “Thank God, with what we have seen, it is not too bad, but what matters most is that we want the completion timeline to be met.

“We are told that by December, the mill will start functioning,’’ the chairman said.

The Chairman expressed optimism that with the fund so far made available by the state government for the project, the contract has no reason to renege in meeting up with the deadline.

“That is why I want to call on the contractors to hasten the job so that the mill could start operation,” he restated.

Speaking during the tour, the state Acting Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms. Abisola Olusanya,
assured that the mill would be completed in December 2020, explained that rice farmers in the state were getting the needed support of the state government.

She said, “On Tuesday, we kicked off the rice farmers’ sensitisation, training and empowerment programme for over 800 rice farmers in Lagos State.

“The reason is even if we are going to source for paddy from other localities, we should start from our own Lagos farmers, our Eko rice farmers,” she added.

The acting commissioner noted that no fewer than 250,000 job opportunities would be created along the value chains.

The committee chairman however commended the leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture for the great work it has done so far.

The state Commissioner for Agriculture, Gbolahan Lawal, had in June, during the one year anniversary briefing of the state government, explained that the rice mills had attained 80 percent completion level compared to 35 percent the administration met in May last year.

The mill when operational would ensure a steady supply of freshly processed rice of about 2.4 million bags of 50 kilogramme per annum to residents in addition to over 250,000 jobs that would be created in both the upstream and downstream sectors of the rice value chain.