By Nudoiba Ojen
The Federal Government has said that only buyers with National Identification Numbers would benefit in the sale of 30, 000 metric tonnes of milled rice to Nigerians at a subsidised rate of N40,000 per 50kg bag.
President Bola Tinubu said that the rice intervention will be sold strictly on a “one person, one bag” basis.
Tinubu, who was represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, spoke on Thursday during the flag-off ceremony.
He said that the 50kg bags of rice, priced at a flat rate of ₦40,000, are part of the Federal Government’s effort to provide subsidised milled rice to help alleviate the ongoing food crisis in Nigeria.
He said, “This food intervention can be said to be timely considering the times and challenges we are in as citizens of this great nation.
“As one of the numerous efforts of the present administration to cushion the effect of high cost of food commodities, kindly join me in applauding the immense efforts of the present administration such as the release of 42,000MT of Assorted Food Commodities (AFC) to vulnerable and the 30,000MT of milled rice which is being flagged-off for sales to Nigerians today September 5, 2024,” he stated.
Kyari said that a multi-disciplinary government task force had been deployed to ensure transparency, broad distribution and the overall success of the initiative.
He said that the process was designed to prevent individuals from obtaining more than one 50kg bag of rice, noting that beneficiaries will be verified through identification methods such as the NIN and phone numbers to prevent fraudulent individuals from accessing multiple bags at the expense of other citizens”.
On the process Nigerians would follow to purchase the rice, the Director of Strategic Grains Reserve, Ministry of Agriculture, Haruna Sule, said that civil servants can access the grains at designated points of sale by using their Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System details.
Sule said, “To qualify for the one person one bag, you must have a NIN, of course, you have phone numbers and those in public service are all registered under the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) platform.
“Once you have any of these three, at the point of sale, with the NIN logged into the system, a code number and a Treasury receipt will be generated, and with that, the buyer can get to the collection centre and pick up his bag. The receipt will indicate, the time and point of collection to eliminate stampede,” he added.
Sule explained that once the buyer provides the code number, a treasury receipt will be issued as proof of payment to the government, adding that the buyer will then receive a receipt indicating the collection point and time.
