NFA asked: Allow LGUs to sell rice

CEBU - The Provincial Development Council yesterday passed a resolution asking the National Food Authority to allow the Local Government Units to sell government subsidized rice with a price comparable to that of the Tindahan Natin outlets.

The resolution was prompted by complaints from the municipal mayors that the NFA is no longer supplying the LGUs with the volume of rice they earlier agreed through the memorandum of agreement they entered into.

Samboan Mayor Raymund Calderon said that aside from the decrease in the volume of government subsidized rice delivered by the NFA to the LGUs it is also higher in prices.

Calderon said the LGUs being an accredited NFA rice retailer based on the MOA are supposed to have 50 sacks a week but it has allegedly reduced to 30 sacks.

He added that the price is also at P25 per kilo and not P18 which made their constituents think that they are making profit out of it.

According to Calderon, the NFA is giving priority to the Tindahan Natin Outlets of the stocks that are sold at P18 per kilo.

NFA provincial manager Nestor Rey Alcoseba explained that the reduction of the supply was because of the national policy withdrawing the NFA supply from the market because it is already harvest season.

Alcoseba said this is to avoid direct competition with the local rice farmers, adding that they also do not want to destroy the price pattern that local rice is sold at P21 per kilo while high-end rice is sold at P50 per kilo.

Governor Gwendolyn Garcia reminded the NFA that it has an existing MOA with the LGUs as its authorized retail outlets.

 She said LGUs should get equal treatment with that of the Tindahan Natin Outlets.

The LGUs were allowed to sell government-subsidized rice at the height of the rice shortage in the country few months ago during which people are lining up to buy cheap rice. — Fred P. Languido/LPM(THE FREEMAN)