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Vegetable Oil Price: Industrialist Faults Minister By Timothy Okwu The Managing Director of Pioneer Nigeria Limited, Chief Olatunde Onakoya, has described the statement purportedly made by the Minister of State for Finance, Mrs Nenadi Usman, that the ban of the importation of vegetable oil has escalated its price as untrue. Onakoya, whose company is a leading producer of vegetable oil in the country, noted in a chat with THISDAY recently that as at last year, locally produced vegetable oil sold between one hundred and sixty thousand naira to one hundred and sixty thousand naira per ton but today it sells at between one hundred and twenty thousand naira and one hundred and twenty-five thousand naira per ton. According to him, the imported vegetable oil which still comes into country in spite of the ban sells at between one hundred and seventy thousand naira to one hundred and ninety thousand naira. He said if the government and other stakeholders involved should take a trip round the vegetable oil processing plants they would observe that producers undercut each other so as to sell the product. This, he explained, is as a result of excess stock of the product. Onakoya, who described the minister's statement as "kite flying," pointed out that it was the usual ploy that is used when some people who benefit from large scale importation of palm materials want to continue benefiting in this act, according to him, these importers have been of disservice to this nation. "It gives room to fraud, they can import 10 million litres of the product and declare that they imported 2 million litres so as to make low import duty payment," he lamented. He, however, asserted that this left on the ban of the product is a northern agenda, according to him most of the importers of the product are from the north, but Chief Onakoya emphasised that even if there was a shortfall of domestic demand of the product, this could be met by the importation of the product in retail packs of 1 - 5 litres as stipulated by the government. Chief Onakoya enjoined stakeholders in the industry to protest misleading information issued by "unscrupulous people who use government officials to perpetuate their interest and destroy an industry which generates a revenue of over 5 billion naira annually. Who Are We ? | About THISDAYOnLine.com | THISDAY People | Contact Us © Copyright 2000 Leaders & Company Limited

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