Following the ban placed on Nigerian beans by the European Union (EU), fresh indications have emerged that Nigerian shippers are now exporting their beans through neighboring ports, albeit at higher costs.
Southwest Coordinator of the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service(NAQS), Mr Sunday Ikani disclosed this to Shipping Position Daily on the sidelines of a 2-day sensitization seminar organised by the Apapa command of the service for exporters in Lagos last week.
Mr Ikana represented the Coordinating Director of NAQS; Dr. Vincent Isegbe at the seminar. He told our correspondent that the beans are diverted to ports of neighbouring countries, from where the Certificate of Origin is changed in order to beat the ban.
"Right now, beans from Nigeria are going to the UK, but how is it going? We have to go and pass through another country and change the certificate of origin. When they get there, the beans is offloaded into a warehouse, the country's quarantine service is called upon to come and inspect it and certify it okay", he disclosed.
"By so doing, it would now look as if the beans are from that country. It is a tedious process, compared to you as a shipper, shipping from your country", he lamented.
Isegbe however disclosed that this is not illegal, stressing that the procedure is allowed in international trade.
"It is only that it costs you more. You have to pay all necessary taxes and registration in that country where you are stopping over"
"The EU was to come here in December, but when they saw the different advocacies we were doing like going to the markets, training the farmers on the dosage of chemicals acceptable and so on. When they saw all these, they have their own agents here, so they wrote us that they have postponed their coming, because they know we are making a lot of efforts, any moment from now, there is no doubt that they would lift the ban", he assured
Meanwhile the service has said that it has begun the regulation of all beans sellers in Nigeria.
According to her, all beans sellers in the markets would now have to get the product from a distributors accredited by NAQS.
The move according to Dr. Isegbe was necessitated by recent reports that Nigerian beans were being preserved with dangerous chemicals like 'sniper' which is harmful for human consumption.
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