The Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission (PCACC), on Sunday, confiscated 10 warehouses with hoarded assorted foodstuffs in the Dawanau area of Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area of the state.
The chairman of the commission, Muhyi Magaji, disclosed this to newsmen shortly after confiscating the warehouses in Dawanau International Grains Market, Singer Market and Kwari Textiles Market.
He said owners of the warehouses were nowhere to be found during the operation but those opened were stacked full of commodities, including spaghetti, rice, pasta, sugar and other food items.
“The owners have been issued notice to report to the commission preparatory to facing charges before the court of law for their illegal activities.
“As you can see, the commission has made true its promise that we are going to embark on a fight against the hoarding of essential commodities in the state.
“We started last Thursday and we have made a significant impact towards stopping the instant rise in the price of essential commodities”.
It was said that within a week, the price of rice had jumped from N52,000 to N61,000 per bag.
“From what we have done so far, we are certain that there is an impact. From here we are going to the market to ascertain the situation.
“Firstly, we were able to stop the instant increase in prices of the commodities and secondly we have the belief that if we sustain the tempo, we will be able to bring down the prices from where they have reached.
“As you can see now, we are going around the warehouses and we met a lot of issues which after we go back to the office, we are going to digest.
“One fundamental problem is each store we entered, they will be claiming that it is the World Food Programme store.
“We wonder if the world food programme will starve the country while taking the food somewhere else.
“You can see, 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, this is unacceptable!
“You can see these stores, there are N100 million worth of hoarded commodities.
“We are taking over the stores now and we are going to make some certain arrests because these 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,” he said.
The Kano PCACC had last week threatened to seize hoarded goods and prosecute perpetrators.
“The PCACC will swing into action and will not watch businessmen hoarding commodities. We know there is the issue of forex, but those that hoard goods, even if the Federal Ministry of Commerce does not act, we will seize hoarded goods and take the owner to court,” its chairman, Rimingado, had said last Thursday.
