Sunday, May 18, 2008 NFA revokes 31 retailers' passbook
THE National Food Authority (NFA) has revoked the passbook of 31 NFA accredited rice retailers found violating the rules and regulations in the sale of the government-subsidized rice.
NFA Assistant Regional Director Roland Maravilla said the revocation of passbook is one of the measures adopted by the agency to prevent unscrupulous rice retailers from engaging in illegal activities in selling the cheap staple.
The granting of the passbook by NFA entitles the rice retailers to buy rice directly from the agency and to resell the staple at the government recommended price in their respective outlets.
Marvilla, who is also the concurrent NFA provincial manager, said most of the violations were overpricing after they were found selling the NFA rice higher than the agency's recommended price of P18.25 a kilo.
Maravilla has deployed personnel to monitor the sale of NFA rice in this city's 98 barangay's following reports reaching his office that some of the rice retailers are selling the cheap staple at a higher price.
He said the other rice retailers whose passbook were revoked were not following the designated schedule in selling the NFA rice to the buying public while the rest have closed shop.
He said the NFA monitoring teams were ordered to constantly monitor the sale of rice to ensure that the poorest of the poor could avail of the cheap rice. (Bong P. Garcia)
