Stakeholders in the Nutrition sector has appealed to the Nigerian Government to grant tax waiver to local producers of Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) for the procurement of raw materials.
This according to them will reduce the cost of production and provide easy access of RUTF to children desperately in need it.
RUTF is a therapeutic food with high energy content that contain adequate amount of protein, vitamins and minerals and used for the treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM).
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in November 2022 alerted the Nigerian government that an estimated 14.7 million children under the age of five are under the threat of severe malnutrition.
But the call for intervention from stakeholders to government follow complains from Local producers, that RUTF and Ready to Use Supplimentary Foods (RUSF) products made in Nigeria are more expensive than the same commodity imported as a result of high taxes.
Speaking at USAID Advancing Nutrition stakeholders consultation meeting in Abuja, the Maternal Infant and Young Child Advisor for the USAID Advancing Nutrition Project in Nigeria, Pauline Adah call on government at all levels to create an enabling environment for local producers of Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods to thrive.
“The challenges shared by this local manufacturers after our visit to them is that the cost of production is high due to taxes in commodities, raw materials that they have to import into the country to produce this RUTF in Nigeria.
“We are looking at a situation where the government and its regulatory agencies will take note of these producers. They are producing life saving foods for our children.
“We are also looking at increased coverage for the treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition and so that partners can patronise made in Nigeria Ready to Use Foods for Malnutrition treatment,” she added.
On his part, the representative of the Director Industrial Development in the Federal Ministry of Industries Trade and Investment, Ojiude Emmanuel Chinonso agree that to make RUTF available for Nigerian children, the country must start producing them locally.
He stressed the need for local investors to source for raw materials locally adding that it will reduce pressure on Forex, make the product cheaper and eventually venture into the Global Value Chain.
The government rep said, “If we get it done from the cradle which is from the production side, the issue of Malnutrition, low purchasing power will be a thing of the past. If we source most of the raw materials locally, we have made over 70% in solving Malnutrition”.
One of the local producers of RUTF, (Nutri K) whose company is based in Kano, Abdoulkader Boukari said many children are not treated because RUTF is expensive in Nigeria.
He stressed the need for support from government and relevant agencies so that the cost of production can reduce and made affordable for Nigerians.
Boukari said, “The RUTF carton in Nigeria is twenty percent more expensive than what is coming from abroad and because we cannot give our customers what they need all the time, they use to import most of the time.
“So the idea is first of all, how we can reduce the cost of RUTF in the country and how we can meet the demand of all our customers like UNICEF, World Food Programme and to be able to export the RUTF to neighbouring countries”.
