NFA to make available 1-kilo rice packs
Roxas City -- Effective next week, The National Food Authority (NFA) in Capiz will start the repacking of 1-kilogram government rice for sale to consumers.
NFA Information Officer Edna Artates said that the already repacked government rice will also be the one that will be delivered to accredited rice outlets.
Artates said that they will also establish the NFA rice outlet at the Teodoro Arcenas Trade Center in Roxas City for the "supervised selling of NFA rice."
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap earlier said that starting this month, the NFA will have a have a stronger presence in the market" through "supervised selling" not only of NFA-subsidized rice but also of medium-priced commercial varieties at P24 to P25 a kilo to help stabilize retail prices of the grain for low- and middle-income consumers alike.
Yap said that the NFA will directly deliver its stocks to its accredited retail outlets and put an end to its practice of allowing traders to pick up their stocks in NFA warehouses.
He added that "while this new no pick-up policy will entail additional costs on the part of the food agency, this will be another way of preventing the diversion of government-subsidized stocks to private warehouses."
"The NFA will do the repacking of government-subsidized rice from hereon to prevent the illegal practice of diverting these stocks or mixing them with commercial varieties and selling them at higher prices," Yap said.
Yap explained that the "supervised selling" by the NFA will be undertaken primarily in the country's 10 most hunger-prone provinces, to ensure that the government-subsidized rice stocks reach the intended beneficiaries instead up ending up in the hands of unscrupulous traders in connivance with erring NFA people."
These initiatives are only among the government measures to stabilize rice prices in the country, he said.
Meanwhile, NFA Capiz has been in close coordination with local chief executives of the 16 towns here, particularly through their respective market inspectors, to help intensify the monitoring of supply and prices of government rice, Artates said.
Artates revealed that of the 1,087 licensed retailers in the province, 5 licenses were already cancelled as of March 31 due to overpricing and diversion of government rice. (PIA)