Lagos – Dr Obiora Madu, the Chairman, Export Group, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), on Wednesday decried the nonregulation of commodity warehousing in the country.
Madu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the absence of regulation had made the monitoring of activities of some commodity exporters difficult.
He said the nonregulation of the industry led the European Union to ban some of Nigeria’s commodities.
“We have a lot of warehouses where commodities for exports are processed but I am saying that in Nigeria there are no control; there is no regulation of warehousing.
“Warehouses don’t have licenses; you don’t even know where they are so that it is possible to also monitor those places because part of the problem is that from one stage to other the same chemical is also applied again and again and again.
“So, at the end of the day the residue limit becomes higher than what is required.
“There is still need to do a lot more to make sure that it does not reoccur, particularly now that everybody is turning towards export because of the shortage of foreign exchange.’’
He, therefore, urged government agencies saddled with regulatory powers to ensure the registration of warehouses to make trading easier.
“Track and trade is still a huge problem for those controlling exports as most of them do not know when they are at fault,’’ Madu added.
NAN reports that the European Union banned some food exports from Nigeria including beans, palm oil, sesame seeds, melon seed, dried fish because they contained high level of unauthorised pesticides.
The European Food Safety Authority had in August last year said that Nigerian beans was banned because it contained between 0.03mg per kg of 4.6mg per kg of dichlorvos pesticides when the acceptable maximum residue limit is 0.01mg per kg. (NAN)
