CLARK FREEPORT – The Foundation for Economic Freedom, Inc. (FEFI) expressed yesterday support for the call of Senators Cynthia Villar and Sherwin Gatchalian to abolish the National Food Authority (NFA).
“The NFA has only caused and aggravated the rice inflation and rice shortage in several regions, compounded the debt and losses of the national government, and provided opportunities for graft and corruption for its officers and employees, from the purchase of imported rice to the distribution and transportation of subsidized rice,” FEFI said in a statement.
The FEFI has for its board of advisers former Prime Minister Cesar E.A. Virata, former Socio- Economic Planning Secretary Dr. Gerardo Sicat, national scientist Dr. Raul Fabella, and former World Bank resident representative Thomas Allen.
The foundation lamented that “with high average rice prices and periodic shortages, the NFA has also contributed to the country’s high wage costs and lower competitiveness.”
“We urge the Senate and the House of Representatives to immediately pass the rice tariffication bill. We support a version of the bill that will abolish the National Food Authority and its powers, including imposing import quotas to the private sector in the importation of rice and to license traders and importers,” the foundation said.
It also expressed support for “setting tariff rates as low as possible in order to make rice more affordable to more than 100 million rice-consuming Filipinos.”
“Food security does not depend on the existence of the National Food Authority as recent events have shown. On the other hand, the NFA has been inefficient and clueless in the right timing in the importation of rice and its distribution,” it added.
FEFI said “the private sector should be free to import rice from any source in whatever quantities the market needs. This is the only solution to the current rice shortage crisis and to the pervasive malnutrition caused by high food prices.”
“To maintain and manage buff er stocks, a new and much smaller agency can be created,” the foundation also said.
