Alleged Hoarding: Kano Anti-graft Commission Seals 10 Warehouses In Kano
By Abdullahi Yusuf
The Kano State Public Complaints And Anti Corruption Commission(PCACC) has sealed about ten warehouses containing foodstuff, as part of its efforts to check hoarding and incessant rise in prices of foodstuff in the state.
Operatives of the commission led by its Chairman, Barrister Muhyi Magaji Rimingado, seized the warehouses located at Africa’s largest Grains Market, Dawanau, in Kano metropolis during an operation on Sunday.
Foodstuff discovered to have been hoarded in the warehouses included rice, sugar, maize, sorghum, millet, spaghetti and noodles which have obviously been concealed for several months.
Owners of most of the warehouses were found to have fled on getting the wind of the operation, leaving their agents behind, while some locked the warehouses and left.
Some of them that remained behind told the commission’s Chairman that they stored the foodstuff found in their warehouses for the World Food Programme (WFP).
In his response, Rimingado asked them to come to the commission’s headquarters with the relevant documents to substantiate their claims.
Addressing newsmen shortly after the operation, the Chairman said the objective of the exercise was to check the incessant rise in the prices of essential commodities in the state.
“We have been experiencing incessant rise in the prices of essential commodities. Within a week, price of rice has jumped from N52,000 to N61,000, that is why we swung into action, and we have made a significant impact towards stopping the rise in prices since we started the operation a few days ago,” he said.
He said the commission would sustain the tempo of the operation till it brings down the prices of essential commodities in the state.
“Virtually each and every warehouse we entered they claimed that it is a World Food Programme store. We wonder if the World Food Programme would starve the country by taking the foodstuff somewhere else.
“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 is unacceptable. You can see these stores; there are hundreds of millions of Naira worth of hoarded commodities in them.
“We are taking over the stores now, and we are going to make some certain arrests because this 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,” Rimingado added.
