Hon. Uzoma Nkem-Abonta is a PDP member representing Ukwa East and
Ukwa West Federal Constituency of Abia State. Currently, he is
sponsoring a bill for an act to provide for the establishment of the
Chartered Institute of Export and Commodity Brokers of Nigeria that has
just passed second reading. In this interview, he spoke with GEORGE OPARA on the objectives and merits of the bill and other political matters. Excerpts.
What informed your sponsoring of the bill for an act to
provide for the establishment of the Chartered Institute of Export and
Commodity Brokers of Nigeria ?
Well, you see, it depends on where you have interest. Mine is on
agriculture and adding value to agricultural products. You can see that
we now depends on oil and having one single form of revenue wouldn’t be
healthy for any nation. Currently, oil is no longer doing well. The oil
price is falling internationally and nationally which is giving us a
great concern. Be that as it may be, we have to virtually depart from
oil-based revenue, diversify and seek ways and means through which we
can increase our revenue. Any country that depends on import will never
have a foreign exchange reserve.
Therefore, the essence of this is to make sure we begin to export
what is exportable, add value to agricultural products and then see what
we can do. You see, most Nigerian agricultural products cannot meet
export requirements because they don’t have the required improvements on
them. We must add value. If, for instance, you want to export cocoa,
you must add some value. May be in terms of packaging and preservation
and so on .So, there will be nothing to lose, we have all to gain, if we
have the institute that will be able to control, regulate, research and
improve what we can produce.
This bill seeks to establish the chartered institute of export and
commodity brokers of Nigeria to be charged among other things with the
responsibilities to determine the level of education needed before a
person can become a member of the institute and to practice export and
commodity trade as a business. It further seeks to establish a governing
council of the institute which shall have the responsibility of
managing the institute, setting up operational standard for educators
and practice requirements.
Objectives of the bill are not far fetched. The main objective of
this bill would be to promote industry and commerce particularly exports
and international trade which is the corner-stone of every country’s
foreign exchange earnings. So, what do we do in Nigeria if we don’t
export? The bill also seeks to research and locate all exportable
products from agriculture, mineral resources and manufactured goods that
are available in Nigeria for export.
If we are to research for these goods, locate them, put them in
exportable form and export them our country will be better for it. Also,
the institute would partner with relevant agencies and companies in
creating an interchange point between the commodity producers, Nigerian
distributors and export merchants for the storage of their products and
to quicken product’s inspection for export.
And liaise with federal, state and private sector, local governments
and relevant agencies in Nigeria on how to make all export processing
zones in Nigeria to be functioning, viable and to see that more of such
are established for the promotion and exportation of make in Nigeria
goods. You can see that most free zones are not functioning.
What happened to TINAPA? What happened to most free zones? They are
not working. They are not functional and are not optimally used because
of lack of knowledge, interest and not been adequately informed and even
when informed, they don’t know how to export. Therefore, the bill seeks
to train most Nigerians on commodity trade, practical approach to
export as a business and on how to benefit from untapped commodity
wealth in Nigeria. What is Malaysia and Singapore doing today?
Malaysia is exporting agricultural products like palm oil. What about
cocoa? Ghana is surviving from cocoa. That’s what they are doing. Can’t
we export our ginger? Can’t we export our cassava, groundnut or palm
oil? Do you know that palm oil is more expensive than crude oil? A litre
of petrol is N90.00 and a bottle of red oil is N300.00. And a drum of
crude oil internationally is less than 50 dollars which if converted to
naira is less than N15, 000. A drum of red oil is over N100,000. So, why
are we wasting time? This is God-given.
Therefore, you can see that the responsibility of the commodity
brokers will be to research and identify all products be it agricultural
or mineral resources in either semi-manufactured or finished products
for export and, serve as intermediary between the commodity producers
and export merchants.
So, if you look at the merits of the bill, it will improve success
factors of government export promotion policy and associate with
government for better export policy implementation. Which means our
export policy will be encouraged. The government ideas or concern for
export must be pushed. It must be private sector-driven.
And this bill seeks to establish the institute that will drive that
If you say government says export, if it is not private-driven, we are
going nowhere because government has no business in doing business.
That’s why the export promotion council with part of its objectives to
encourage export is not doing much. And it is not going to do much
better. It can only do what it is doing now.
But with this institute, it will be able to research and determine
what is exportable and how we can harness the government policy to
achieve what we want? That is what I considered and that is why I
sponsored this bill for consideration.
What about the roles of the commodity brokers?
The commodity brokers are to research and identify all products be it
agriculture, mineral resources and manufactured goods either
semi-manufactured or finished goods for export. And the brokers serve as
intermediary between the commodity producers and export merchants. Let
me give you an example, if you need to export palm oil, you must be able
to have them in exportable quality, in good shape and well stored. And
you know that you can get the best quality of palm oil if you mill them
within 2-3 days of harvest.
These local farmers cannot do that. They don’t even have the machine
to mill it. Therefore, a commodity broker who installs a mill will lure
the local farmers to come there and mill and they pay the cost of what
is milled. He secures it and gets a buyer who comes to the point to
trade. So, the commodity broker is the link between the producer and
buyer. Also, this method and process can be applied to other products
for export trade.
Thus, it will create employment, it will create economic viability.
It will also get us foreign exchange. Recall, former President Obasanjo
went into cassava initiative without even making plan for export. That
year, the whole country was flooded with cassava. There was cassava
slump.
We could not preserve and export the cassava. The farmers lost. The
following year, they refused to farm. So, this institute will be able to
fill that gap through research, warehousing etc. why is it that when
you order one shipload of rice from America, they get it for you? It is
because of the brokers who have arranged production, adding value,
storage shipping and packaging. And that problem is gone off the farmer.
The farmer only produces, makes his money. Somebody adds value,
stores and arranges for export. And those who want to import will go to
accredited exporters who are licensed, well known, and credible and
would place the order. That is how it should be. So let’s get the
agricultural sector organized if we must forge ahead.
What is the progress of the bill in the house?
The bill has scaled through the second reading and has been referred
to relevant committees. I am sure the 8th assembly in the ear of change
will work assiduously to see that the bill gets to the senate and Mr.
President for his assent,so that we may have a turnaround in
agriculture, our hope is only in agriculture. But this bill had some
challenges in 2006 and 2014. I didn’t quite appreciate what you mean by
challenges. The making of laws is a rigorous process.
I know I introduced this bill in the 7th assembly; they argued it but
in the wisdom of the house, didn’t see the need for the institute to be
because they had thought that government has no business in
establishing and funding such an institute. But whatever that can bring
the policy of government to grow now that it is very clear that we know
that oil revenue is dwindling, we must look for an option. And the next
thing is agriculture. So, the challenges from the dwindling oil revenue
have exposed the need why this bill will now scale through so that we
can go on as a country.
You were in 6th, 7th and now 8th assembly. What do you think is peculiar with the present assembly?
I know that in the 6th and 7th Assembly of Rt. Hon. Dimeji Bankole
and Rt Hon. Tambuwal, we have parliamentary disagreements that
influenced how we took off but there were stability until the end of the
sessions, though with few defections from the PDP to APC in the 7th
assembly. However, the 8th assembly came with its challenges with the
PDP as opposition which also made the house to be robust in its
parliamentary engagements. Those of us in the PDP have to tight up our
belt and face the work.
You were a member of the House of Representatives who used to
playing the politics of the majority but now you are in opposition. How
do you feel?
I have no ill-feelings. Opposition is a good thing in democracy. It
is credible. All we need to do is to play credible opposition. To be in
opposition does not mean you are not part of government. Opposition has a
very important role to play. We must be on the watch of the ruling APC
to save Nigeria. I am happy to be doing an opposition job. It is not a
bad job except we have ill-feelings. Opposition will even help the
ruling party to achieve and also save Nigeria
Foodfarmnewstv
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