- The owners were absent, but the opened warehouses revealed stocked commodities such as spaghetti, rice, pasta, sugar, and other food items
On Sunday, the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission seized 10 warehouses containing hoarded assorted foodstuffs in the Dawanau area of Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area.
Chairman Muhyi Magaji revealed this to the press after the operation in Dawanau International Grains Market, Singer Market, and Kwari Textiles Market.
The owners were absent, but the opened warehouses revealed stocked commodities such as spaghetti, rice, pasta, sugar, and other food items.
“The owners have been issued notice to report to the commission preparatory to facing charges before the court of law for their illegal activities.
“As you can see, the commission has made true its promise that we are going to embark on a fight against the hoarding of essential commodities in the state.
“We started last Thursday and we have made a significant impact towards stopping the instant rise in the price of essential commodities.”
It was said that within a week, the price of rice had jumped from N52,000 to N61,000 per bag.
“From what we have done so far, we are certain that there is an impact. From here we are going to the market to ascertain the situation.
“Firstly, we were able to stop the instant increase in prices of the commodities and secondly we have the belief that if we sustain the tempo, we will be able to bring down the prices from where they have reached.
“As you can see now, we are going around the warehouses and we met a lot of issues which after we go back to the office, we are going to digest.
“One fundamental problem is each store we entered, they will be claiming that it is the World Food Programme store.
“We wonder if the world food programme will starve the country while taking the food somewhere else.
“You can see, I was told here today that the price of maize has jumped from N30,000 to N60,000. So you see, a 100 per cent increase, this is unacceptable!
“You can see these stores, there are N100m worth of hoarded commodities.
“We are taking over the stores now and we are going to make some certain arrests because these will not be tolerated.
”This is not a market; this is a warehouse. We have activated our intelligence mechanism and they have come up with reports on where and how they are hoarding it,” he said.
The Kano PCACC had last week threatened to seize hoarded goods and prosecute perpetrators.
“The PCACC will swing into action and will not watch businessmen hoarding commodities. We know there is the issue of forex, but those that hoard goods, even if the Federal Ministry of Commerce does not act, we will seize hoarded goods and take the owner to court,” its chairman, Rimingado, had said last Thursday.