Senate wants stop of rice import waiver

Abuja – The Federal Government is losing N71 billion annually on duty waivers especially to importers of food, a senator said as the House urged the Federal Government to stop all waivers on rice importation and the issuing of waivers on all agriculture products.

‎The Upper Chamber also directed Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, and the Comptroller General of Customs, Abdullahi Dikko, to ensure that all import duties due to government are forthwith recovered.

Nigeria has lost a whopping sum of N585 billion to import waivers in the last four years, the Senate revealed yesterday.

“The flagrant abuse of the waiver scheme has severely eroded the FederalGovernment’s Rice Production Policy by importing huge quantities of thecommodity in excess of the their approved quota”, Ibrahim said.

It set up a nine-member committee to look into all waivers, concessions and grants.

He therefore called for a complete stop of waivers.

He noted in his motion that the government’s desire to promote agriculture and Agro businesses with its policy on diversification is being eroded by the indiscriminate grant of waivers, concessions and grants on rice importation.

The committee is also responsible for reviewing policies to recover all government revenues and block leakages.

He further argued that instead of importers paying 70 per cent duties and levies to the federal government, they were granted waivers and thereby denied Nigeria legitimate revenue.

He also noted that to lose this vast amount of revenue at a time when the oil price has plunged to record lows impacting on the fiscal stability of the country was reckless and did not show that the nation was serious about economic revival.

He regretted that the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) which ought to enforce compliance with the duty policy at the borders has failed to live up to its responsibility.

In his submission, Ibrahim Gobir (Sokoto East), observed that the huge amount the Federal Government spent on waivers between 2011 and 2015 was enough to establish five local industries in each of the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Gobir, while contributing to the debate on the motion, stated that findings on waivers had shown that N585 billion worth of waivers were granted by the Federal Government between 2011 and 2015.

While advocating removal of waivers, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South), said waiver on rice, cement, palm oil, among others, should be completely removed, adding that local content production should be enhanced while the Nigerian economy is protected like that of Malaysia.