MANILA, Philippines — The National Food Authority (NFA) is possibly reserving imported rice for sale to commercial traders, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) warned yesterday.
The NFA imported 250,000 metric tons (MT) of rice and the supply started to arrive this month until August.
“Tens of thousands of bags of imported rice from Vietnam have started to arrive this week, but the assurance that these rice stocks will reach retail markets and rice consumers in need of affordable rice remains uncertain,” KMP secretary-general Antonio Flores said.
“For all we know, the NFA is only showcasing that cheap rice will be available soon, but in truth, NFA warehouses in the Visayas and Mindanao are still empty or with dwindling supply, and there are no P27 and P34 per kilo of NFA rice in retail markets. The NFA kept on announcing that cheap imported rice will hit the markets soon to stabilize rice prices. But where are the rice stocks?” he added.
Flores bared that the KMP received information that the rice imported by NFA are still in barge containers and have not yet passed necessary customs inspection.
“We are worried that the NFA is once again reserving these imported rice stocks for priority selling to private and commercial traders. Rice smugglers could also take advantage of large shipment of imported rice coming in to bring in their shipment of smuggled rice,” he said.
“In the end, we’ll realize there is really no affordable rice in the market and the control of supply and price of rice are still with the private rice traders. What happened to the agency’s mandate of ensuring the country’s rice staple supply?” he added.
Early this year, the country experienced an artificial rice shortage due to the unavailability of cheap NFA rice in the market. Rice prices have gone up since then, with current rice prices ranging from P43 to P55 per kilo for well-milled and premium rice, respectively.
It was then exposed that unscrupulous officials in the NFA sold imported rice at cheaper prices to private traders.
The government again opened the bidding for the importation of another 850,200 MT of imported rice from Thailand and Vietnam with a maximum volume of 293,100 MT each.