The chairman of the Cocoa Processors Association of Nigeria (COPAN), Akin Olusuyi, in a chat with Dele Aderibigbe, during the recent Customs Service meeting with Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), in Lagos, indicated where the nation’s export policies were wrong and the harm multiple government agencies were inflicting on export business. Excerpts:

ONE of the major export products of yesteryear, cocoa, no longer receives the desired attention; what led to this sad situation?
Let me start by saying that cocoa and cocoa related products are major issues in non-oil revenue generation in this nation, but unfortunately, the attention that has been given to structure that aspect of the economy has not been adequate.

We operate in an atmosphere that is totally beyond our control in terms of getting our raw materials as well as products. From the raw material ends to the finished ends, our prices are dictated from outside and that put us in a very precarious situation. We have been canvassing against this over the years, but the government is yet to grant us the desired audience.

In July 2010, during the National Cocoa Day, the President did set up a Committee to look at the problems of COPAN (Cocoa Products Association of Nigeria) and  a lot of issues were raised about that report which is now lying somewhere between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Presidency, but let me say that our problems are both internal and external. While our internal problems arise from infrastructures that are at motion, we also have a situation where we contend with the forces that put us in a serious disadvantage in terms of competition.

Let me paint a picture for you; an average Nigerian processor gets his cocoa from the inside, but we face a situation where the supply is made cumbersome for us because there is no control of coca trade in Nigeria like other cocoa producing nations like Ghana and Ivory Coast.

I am telling you now that nobody in Nigeria can tell us the amount of cocoa tonnes we are producing in this nation because there is no statistics. The Federal Government sometimes ago dismantled the Nigeria Cocoa Board and since then, the economy has been left dormant. Where we have problem is in the disadvantaged trade we have in cocoa because there is no institutional framework to monitor or to address the problems and distortion that we have in the market.

One is that Nigeria is about the only country among the major cocoa producers where a foreign buyer can just come in and go straight to the famers’ gate and buy cocoa.

For instance, in Ghana or Ivory Coast, the price cannot go beyond the commodity exchange pointer; we are not asking the foreigners not to come and buy, but the issue is that there should be some level of protection. We should not be competing with somebody who is coming from an economy that is more structured and organised than ours; and has access to cheaper funds, and be competing with him at our own farm gate.

The government knows that the infrastructure in the environment in which we operate here is nothing to write home about. That our plants need to work for 24 hours daily because if you try to make it work for 12 hours you will have to reboot the plant the next day and to do that, we do not need an epileptic power supply that works for 30 hours in a month. So, we are facing a serious issue. We know this is not peculiar to us, we are asking that as it is done in most cocoa producing nations, let there be a special fund (a stabilization fund) that is created for manufacturing cocoa processing. Let me tell you something that people may not know, as we are talking of high revenue generation, the cocoa economy generate more than 30 per cent of all the non-oil revenue that comes to this country. From the 2010 report that was generated by COPAN, the result showed that the cocoa and cocoa related products generated 35.35 per cent of all the total revenue that non-oil sector generated for the nation.

If we don’t develop our non-oil sectors then we are not doing enough. And if a single commodity like cocoa is generating so much to the economy, then the sector should be attended to; adequate attention should be given to the sector, but we are definitely not getting it.

On the issue of exports, what are the peculiar challenges your sector probably contend with sir?
There have been so many impediments put in ways because our products are peculiar products. If my (cocoa) butter stays under the sun for one day, I will lose millions of dollars because they melt under heat and yet we have COPAN appointed by the Federal Government to inspect our products. We pay the charges given to us, they check the product and certify it and that is what we have been operating on. But recently, we have started having increasing problems from the (Nigeria) Customs, in terms of value assessment. They tell us they make their assessment based on internet, but the result had always been unrealistic, because, as I speak with you, the price changes every minute and, that is why when you look at commodity prices you find they flunctuate, thus the price we start from is often different from the price we close at, even in a single day. So, when a Customs officer delays your product, exposing it to the sun on the basis of some internet assessment, you may begin to understand the risks or the damage he is doing to your investment!

Every delay actually means further exposing the products to risk of deterioration. By that, justice is not done either to me or to the economy. I should believe that if our products are selling higher and faster, that should be to the advantage of the nation because it is increasing revenue that would be coming into the country.

So, I don’t know why any government agency should be offended with that, unless they can prove that there is a fraud. That is why I believe that we should be able to do alignment or synchronise various obstacles that are facing us.

For instance, the NAFDAC recently said that they wanted to be inspecting our products going out, and I said what was that supposed to mean, because we already have a lot of agencies doing that like the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON). We have three bodies already doing that. So why would NAFDAC want to come and also inspect us? We have asked NAFDAC what value would be added. We have our enabling documents.

But NAFDAC digs out a 2002 documents that expects them to check all finished and semi-finished products and we are saying that if government have implemented this mandate through other agencies, why duplicate issues? Moreover, our goods are perishable goods, especially for products like cocoa butter, how far are we going to wait for you to carry out such inspection without jeopardising the value, texture and without even the entire contracts?

I believe that in this country there are too many regulatory agencies that are not harmonising their operations and so they are creating problems for the people they are supposed to be protecting.