NFA blames Customs for loss of seized rice in Cebu

The National Food Authority (NFA) has blamed the Bureau of Customs for not immediately requesting it to store some 36,000 sacks of smuggled rice which the bureau’s agents confiscated in Cebu recently.

NFA Administrator Anthony Abad reported to Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor, who also chairs the NFA Council, that the agency has at least seven warehouses in Cebu to store these stocks.

Under a memorandum of agreement which the NFA and BoC forged last August, the bureau committed to immediately ask for accommodation for its confiscated rice stocks in NFA warehouses.

The NFA said in a statement that it did not receive any request from the BoC to store the seized 36,000 sacks in its bodegas for safekeeping.

At present, the NFA has in its custody only 1,000 sacks of rice which the BoC seized from container vans a few days after the disappearance of M/V Great Faith last Dec. 25.