By Stephen Ubanna
Vice President Kashim Shettima, who incidentally was a former governor of Borno state and who had represented President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, at the Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, recent Conference , in Lagos, the Nation’s Commercial nerve centre, may have returned back to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, on Thursday, December 14, 2023, a happy person.
The Nigerian Vice President may have left the NCS Conference satisfied that the Customs after all have the required qualified and technical personnel to carry out their statutory responsibilities of revenue generation, ‘ facilitate legitimate trade, suppress smuggling operations across the country, and ensure Ease of Doing Business, EoDB, at the nation’s seaports, airports and Land border areas believed to have been abandoned over the years and affected the service annual revenue generation .
The former Borno state governor may have taken advantage of the Customs Comptroller General conference’’ to hint on Tinubu’ Administration plan to stop import duty and tax waivers as well as vows to be hard on smugglers.
Signs that the Tinubu’s Administration may want to stop the indiscriminate granting of import duty and tax waivers to some private individuals and companies may have sated last November when Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, MFR, Comptroller General, NCS, on appearance at the National Assembly had told the Lawmakers that the service lost the sum of N1.3 billion which was said to have hit the N1.8 billion mark as at December , 14, 2023, due to the waivers and Concessions granted to investors by former Presiden Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration.
Ben 2019 and 2021 the then Buhari’s government was said to have granted waivers, incentives and exemptions worth N2.296 trillion to 46 large Companies operating in Nigeria while the requests of 186 Companies were still pending. This was said to have been contained in the Medium- Term and Fiscal Strategy documents of the government posted on the website of the Budget office of the Federation 2023-2025.
An aggrieved President Tinubu had said at the Customs Comptroller General’s Conference that ‘’historical inadequacies of policy making which hitherto had been thwarted by a lack of comprehensive data in Nigeria had been a major problem in the country’’, describing it as ‘’a technological affliction that has hindered the growth trajectory of Nigeria and impeding the ability to make informed governance decisions’’.
Vice President Shettima, who had spoken the mind of Tinubu, had praised the Adeniyi led Customs ‘’for adopting technology’’ believed ’’ to be critical to the nation’s growth’’. It was not surprising why he had said that ‘’the 2023, Customs Comptroller General is not only commendable but indeed poignant in Nigeria’s quest for growth and development’’.
Adeniyi, the Customs Comptroller General, had asserted that both not for the N1.8 trillion waivers granted to some categories of importers both Corporate and individuals for the 2023, fiscal year, it would have pushed up its annual revenue generation from the present N2.8 trillion to N4.6 trillion.
Notwithstanding, the indiscriminate granting of import duty waivers and exemptions, which President Tiubu, has moved to stop, with the backing of the National Assembly, Adeniyi, the Customs helmsman, had told the House Committee on Appropriation on Monday, December 18, 2023, that the service has the capacity to generate and even exceed the N6 trillion revenue target set for it in the 2024 Fiscal year. He was said to have told the Lawmakers, that the feat could only be achieved ‘’if the present Administration of President Tinubu, ‘’reduces the N6 trillion import duty and tax waiver grants in 2024’’.
He was emphatic that if the National Assembly could pass the necessary bill and assent to it the President for his assent it will assist the service ‘’to facilitate a number of issues that will make its improved revenue possible’’. He may have shocked the House Appropriation Committee members when asserted that ‘’frequent import duty waivers by the Federal government was one of the factors that had impeded the service non-oil revenue generation.
The Senators may have read the body language of the Customs Comptroller General that he and his management Team are ready to double their efforts to jerk up the country’s non-oil revenue by blocking all areas of revenue leakage that they were said to have recommended that all import duty and tax waivers from 2015 till date should be investigated by the relevant Committees of the Senate.
The Lawmakers may have sent a message to the non-governmental/ non-profit organisations that they may longer be granted waivers by the government, insisting that before waiver could be granted to any corporate body or private person there must be need for it.
A retired senior officer who spoke to The Value News on condition of anonymity had said that Hajia Zainab Ahmed, a former minister of Finance, Budget and Planning had taken advantage that former President Buhari could grant indiscriminate waivers to investors, to recklessly grant import/export incentives on unapproved goods from fish, Palm Oil, to kolanuts .The source disclosed that there were abuses by previous Administrations, which allowed waivers to be awarded to private individuals like coscharis.
Given the huge amount that had been lost by the government between 2021 and 2023, particular, through granting of waivers, may have informed why the ninth National Assembly under the Leadership of Senator Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan, had called Hameed Ali, a retired Army Colonel and erstwhile Comptroller General of Customs and his Management team to review import duties and tax waivers being granted to some companies and individuals without corresponding corporate social responsibility to Nigerians in terms of expected project executions like construction of roads . The Lawmakers may have sent a message to President Buhari in early 2023, that Nigeria does not have the capacity for now’’ to accommodate such multi-trillion naira import duty and tax waivers.
Until the issue of import duty and tax waivers became pronounced in 2015, Rotimi Amaechi, a one-time- minister of Transportation under Buhari’s Administration and who incidentally was a former governor of Rivers state had said that between 2011 and 2014, a total of N215 billion in import duty exemptions were granted in four years under Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s Administration.
He had said Godswill Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom state and now Senate President and late Danbaba Suntai and himself benefited from the N215 billion import duty waiver to buy different ranges of aircrafts that included a Bombardier private jet and a Bell 407 Helicopter in the name of their respective states.
The former minister had said that the state governors and other top government officials circumvented paying import duties , even as they imported , under various guises ‘’ to buy luxury automobiles that included BMW, Ford, Range Rover, Lexus and Jaquar. The waivers were said to have been granted in the names of their respective states.
Going by the Nigeria government Trade guidelines for issuance of Import Duty Exemption Certificate , IDEC, for items exempted from the payment of duties , levies and other form of taxes, includes all medical and pharmaceutical products, basic food items, books and educational materials, baby products, fertilizer , locally produced Agricultural and Veterinary medicine, farming machinery and transportation equipment, plant and machinery imported for use in the export processing zone.
This is in addition to plant, machinery and equipment purchased for utilisation of gas production the in upstream petroleum operations, Tractors, ploughs, agricultural equipment and implement purchased for agricultural purposes.
Even machineries and equipment, under chapters 84, 85 and 90, of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, Common External Tariff, 2022-2026, for Agriculture, Cement, , Hospitality, Iron and steel and Textile industries and chapter 88 for Aviation were also exempted from payment of import duty taxes . The greatest beneficiaries of the import duty and tax exemptions in 2021, alone, were said to be the diplomatic community in Nigeria, armed forces, airlines and some unique health are medical facilities.
Worried that which Multi-national manufacturing Companies are leaving Nigeria as their products could not compete with imported ones may have encouraged the National Assembly to take a resolution that any product manufacture in Nigeria should no longer be imported into the Ali Ndume, Senate Chief Whip had said that ‘’some multinational companies are taking advantage of Nigeria unnecessarily and are benefiting from the import duty and tax waivers granted to them by the government to the detriment of Nigerians’’.
Senator Ali Ndume, was said to have advised Wale Edun, minister of Finance and Coordinating minister of the economy ‘’to abolish the import duty and tax waivers, granted to the companies operating in Nigeria.
There are indications that over five companies have either left the country to other countries in the West African sub-region or have dropped their manufacturing activities to become importers to enjoy the import duty and tax waivers from the government.
The foreign companies that were said to have left the country includes Unilever, manufacturers of such products such as Omo, Sunlight soap, and other products; GlaxoSmithline , a drug and vaccines manufacture;, Sanofi, a French pharmaceutical company and Moak industries.
The latest on the list of the Multinational companies that has planned to sell off their multi-billion dollar assets and leave Nigeria was Procter and Gamble, manufacturers of household items such as Pampers, Aways, Oral B, Ariel, Ambi-spur, SafeGuard , Ollay and Gilette .
The North American country of the United States, US, manufacturing company had lamented that despite being a $50 million net sales in Nigeria, P&G, with an $85 million overall portfolio, plans to terminate its on-ground operations in Nigeria, to further’’ transform the most populous African country into an import- focused market where the government could grant import duty and tax waivers-exemptions to corporate bodies and private persons to undermine local manufacturers of such products to sell at cheap price. The Company may have spoken the mind of other multi-national firms which had dropped hints of closing their factories in Nigeria or have relocated to their home country or other countries in the West African sub-region as it has stated that Nigeria and the South American country of Argentina are the most difficult places ‘’to operate because of the macroeconomic environment’’.
Last June, Francis Meshioye, President of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, had warned that more Multinational manufacturing companies will relocate firm Nigeria to other countries in the African Continent by officials of the ministry of Industries, Trade and Investment did not take heed to the warning.
Enough on duty tax waivers. We turn to anti-smuggling operations. The Nigerian President who who was said to have given a matching Order to the Customs Comptroller General to contain the activities of the smugglers operating across the different parts of the country was said to have in turn taking up with the Area Controllers of the Service Interventionist Units and who in turn had read the riot act to their various anti-smuggling and patrol teams to ensure they deliver on their mandates.
From FOUs, Zone A, Ikeja, Lagos, Zone B, Kaduna, Zone, C, Owerri, Oyo-Osun to Ogun 1, Idiroko, manneds by the anti-smuggling Czar, Acting Shuaibu Ahmaou Bello, the story is the same: Hard times for smugglers. The duo, Acting Compt. Shuaibu and Compt. Ben Nkem Oramalogu, Area Comptroller, Oyo and Osun Command over the last two months in their respective Commands were said to have tightened up security that no Contraband enters or leaves their area of Jurisdictions to fall into the waiting hands of FOU, Zone A, patrol team officers on the road. This is evident with the reduced volume of intercepted Contraband, particular, foreign parboiled rice by the Command in the month of November.
A visitor to the Government Warehouse at Idiroko and Abeokuta, the Ogun state Capital controlled by Ogun I, Command, disclosed that the two government warehouses are filled to the brim with intercepted Contraband ranging from the Asian country of Thailand parboiled rice, Pneumatic tyres, to Indian Hemp begging for space to accommodate other seized item. The same could be said of the Government Warehouse Ibadan controlled by the Oyo/Osun Command.
Given the Nigerian President’s determination to flush out the smugglers from the Nigerian shores may have informed why he has sought the fullest support of the United Nation, UN, under the Leadership of Antonio Guterres in the fight against smugglers of the country’s mineral resources and other Contraband goods from other neighbouring countries of Benin Republic, Niger and the Central African country of Cameroun into the Nigerian market.
By Stephen Ubanna
Vice President Kashim Shettima, who incidentally was a former governor of Borno state and who had represented President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, at the Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, recent Conference , in Lagos, the Nation’s Commercial nerve centre, may have returned back to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, on Thursday, December 14, 2023, a happy person.
The Nigerian Vice President may have left the NCS Conference satisfied that the Customs after all have the required qualified and technical personnel to carry out their statutory responsibilities of revenue generation, ‘ facilitate legitimate trade, suppress smuggling operations across the country, and ensure Ease of Doing Business, EoDB, at the nation’s seaports, airports and Land border areas believed to have been abandoned over the years and affected the service annual revenue generation .
The former Borno state governor may have taken advantage of the Customs Comptroller General conference’’ to hint on Tinubu’ Administration plan to stop import duty and tax waivers as well as vows to be hard on smugglers.
Signs that the Tinubu’s Administration may want to stop the indiscriminate granting of import duty and tax waivers to some private individuals and companies may have sated last November when Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, MFR, Comptroller General, NCS, on appearance at the National Assembly had told the Lawmakers that the service lost the sum of N1.3 billion which was said to have hit the N1.8 billion mark as at December , 14, 2023, due to the waivers and Concessions granted to investors by former Presiden Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration.
Ben 2019 and 2021 the then Buhari’s government was said to have granted waivers, incentives and exemptions worth N2.296 trillion to 46 large Companies operating in Nigeria while the requests of 186 Companies were still pending. This was said to have been contained in the Medium- Term and Fiscal Strategy documents of the government posted on the website of the Budget office of the Federation 2023-2025.
An aggrieved President Tinubu had said at the Customs Comptroller General’s Conference that ‘’historical inadequacies of policy making which hitherto had been thwarted by a lack of comprehensive data in Nigeria had been a major problem in the country’’, describing it as ‘’a technological affliction that has hindered the growth trajectory of Nigeria and impeding the ability to make informed governance decisions’’.
Vice President Shettima, who had spoken the mind of Tinubu, had praised the Adeniyi led Customs ‘’for adopting technology’’ believed ’’ to be critical to the nation’s growth’’. It was not surprising why he had said that ‘’the 2023, Customs Comptroller General is not only commendable but indeed poignant in Nigeria’s quest for growth and development’’.
Adeniyi, the Customs Comptroller General, had asserted that both not for the N1.8 trillion waivers granted to some categories of importers both Corporate and individuals for the 2023, fiscal year, it would have pushed up its annual revenue generation from the present N2.8 trillion to N4.6 trillion.
Notwithstanding, the indiscriminate granting of import duty waivers and exemptions, which President Tiubu, has moved to stop, with the backing of the National Assembly, Adeniyi, the Customs helmsman, had told the House Committee on Appropriation on Monday, December 18, 2023, that the service has the capacity to generate and even exceed the N6 trillion revenue target set for it in the 2024 Fiscal year. He was said to have told the Lawmakers, that the feat could only be achieved ‘’if the present Administration of President Tinubu, ‘’reduces the N6 trillion import duty and tax waiver grants in 2024’’.
He was emphatic that if the National Assembly could pass the necessary bill and assent to it the President for his assent it will assist the service ‘’to facilitate a number of issues that will make its improved revenue possible’’. He may have shocked the House Appropriation Committee members when asserted that ‘’frequent import duty waivers by the Federal government was one of the factors that had impeded the service non-oil revenue generation.
The Senators may have read the body language of the Customs Comptroller General that he and his management Team are ready to double their efforts to jerk up the country’s non-oil revenue by blocking all areas of revenue leakage that they were said to have recommended that all import duty and tax waivers from 2015 till date should be investigated by the relevant Committees of the Senate.
The Lawmakers may have sent a message to the non-governmental/ non-profit organisations that they may longer be granted waivers by the government, insisting that before waiver could be granted to any corporate body or private person there must be need for it.
A retired senior officer who spoke to The Value News on condition of anonymity had said that Hajia Zainab Ahmed, a former minister of Finance, Budget and Planning had taken advantage that former President Buhari could grant indiscriminate waivers to investors, to recklessly grant import/export incentives on unapproved goods from fish, Palm Oil, to kolanuts .The source disclosed that there were abuses by previous Administrations, which allowed waivers to be awarded to private individuals like coscharis.
Given the huge amount that had been lost by the government between 2021 and 2023, particular, through granting of waivers, may have informed why the ninth National Assembly under the Leadership of Senator Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan, had called Hameed Ali, a retired Army Colonel and erstwhile Comptroller General of Customs and his Management team to review import duties and tax waivers being granted to some companies and individuals without corresponding corporate social responsibility to Nigerians in terms of expected project executions like construction of roads . The Lawmakers may have sent a message to President Buhari in early 2023, that Nigeria does not have the capacity for now’’ to accommodate such multi-trillion naira import duty and tax waivers.
Until the issue of import duty and tax waivers became pronounced in 2015, Rotimi Amaechi, a one-time- minister of Transportation under Buhari’s Administration and who incidentally was a former governor of Rivers state had said that between 2011 and 2014, a total of N215 billion in import duty exemptions were granted in four years under Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s Administration.
He had said Godswill Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom state and now Senate President and late Danbaba Suntai and himself benefited from the N215 billion import duty waiver to buy different ranges of aircrafts that included a Bombardier private jet and a Bell 407 Helicopter in the name of their respective states.
The former minister had said that the state governors and other top government officials circumvented paying import duties , even as they imported , under various guises ‘’ to buy luxury automobiles that included BMW, Ford, Range Rover, Lexus and Jaquar. The waivers were said to have been granted in the names of their respective states.
Going by the Nigeria government Trade guidelines for issuance of Import Duty Exemption Certificate , IDEC, for items exempted from the payment of duties , levies and other form of taxes, includes all medical and pharmaceutical products, basic food items, books and educational materials, baby products, fertilizer , locally produced Agricultural and Veterinary medicine, farming machinery and transportation equipment, plant and machinery imported for use in the export processing zone.
This is in addition to plant, machinery and equipment purchased for utilisation of gas production the in upstream petroleum operations, Tractors, ploughs, agricultural equipment and implement purchased for agricultural purposes.
Even machineries and equipment, under chapters 84, 85 and 90, of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, Common External Tariff, 2022-2026, for Agriculture, Cement, , Hospitality, Iron and steel and Textile industries and chapter 88 for Aviation were also exempted from payment of import duty taxes . The greatest beneficiaries of the import duty and tax exemptions in 2021, alone, were said to be the diplomatic community in Nigeria, armed forces, airlines and some unique health are medical facilities.
Worried that which Multi-national manufacturing Companies are leaving Nigeria as their products could not compete with imported ones may have encouraged the National Assembly to take a resolution that any product manufacture in Nigeria should no longer be imported into the Ali Ndume, Senate Chief Whip had said that ‘’some multinational companies are taking advantage of Nigeria unnecessarily and are benefiting from the import duty and tax waivers granted to them by the government to the detriment of Nigerians’’.
Senator Ali Ndume, was said to have advised Wale Edun, minister of Finance and Coordinating minister of the economy ‘’to abolish the import duty and tax waivers, granted to the companies operating in Nigeria.
There are indications that over five companies have either left the country to other countries in the West African sub-region or have dropped their manufacturing activities to become importers to enjoy the import duty and tax waivers from the government.
The foreign companies that were said to have left the country includes Unilever, manufacturers of such products such as Omo, Sunlight soap, and other products; GlaxoSmithline , a drug and vaccines manufacture;, Sanofi, a French pharmaceutical company and Moak industries.
The latest on the list of the Multinational companies that has planned to sell off their multi-billion dollar assets and leave Nigeria was Procter and Gamble, manufacturers of household items such as Pampers, Aways, Oral B, Ariel, Ambi-spur, SafeGuard , Ollay and Gilette .
The North American country of the United States, US, manufacturing company had lamented that despite being a $50 million net sales in Nigeria, P&G, with an $85 million overall portfolio, plans to terminate its on-ground operations in Nigeria, to further’’ transform the most populous African country into an import- focused market where the government could grant import duty and taxwaivers-exemptions to corporate bodies and private persons to undermine local manufacturers of such products to sell at cheap price. The Company may have spoken the mind of other multi-national firms which had dropped hints of closing their factories in Nigeria or have relocated to their home country or other countries in the West African sub-region as it has stated that Nigeria and the South American country of Argentina are the most difficult places ‘’to operate because of the macroeconomic environment’’.
Last June, Francis Meshioye, President of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, had warned that more Multinational manufacturing companies will relocate firm Nigeria to other countries in the African Continent by officials of the ministry of Industries, Trade and Investment did not take heed to the warning.
Enough on duty taxwaivers. We turn to anti-smuggling operations. The Nigerian President who who was said to have given a matching Order to the Customs Comptroller General to contain the activities of the smugglers operating across the different parts of the country was said to have in turn taking up with the Area Controllers of the Service Interventionist Units and who in turn had read the riot act to their various anti-smuggling and patrol teams to ensure they deliver on their mandates.
From FOUs, Zone A, Ikeja, Lagos, Zone B, Kaduna, Zone, C, Owerri, Oyo-Osun to Ogun 1, Idiroko, manneds by the anti-smuggling Czar, Acting Shuaibu Ahmaou Bello, the story is the same: Hard times for smugglers. The duo, Acting Compt. Shuaibu and Compt. Ben Nkem Oramalogu, Area Comptroller, Oyo and Osun Command over the last two months in their respective Commands were said to have tightened up security that no Contraband enters or leaves their area of Jurisdictions to fall into the waiting hands of FOU, Zone A, patrol team officers on the road. This is evident with the reduced volume of intercepted Contraband, particular, foreign parboiled rice by the Command in the month of November.
A visitor to the Government Warehouse at Idiroko and Abeokuta, the Ogun state Capital controlled by Ogun I, Command, disclosed that the two government warehouses are filled to the brim with intercepted Contraband ranging from the Asian country of Thailand parboiled rice, Pneumatic tyres, to Indian Hemp begging for space to accommodate other seized item. The same could be said of the Government Warehouse Ibadan controlled by the Oyo/Osun Command.
Given the Nigerian President’s determination to flush out the smugglers from the Nigerian shores may have informed why he has sought the fullest support of the United Nation, UN, under the Leadership of Antonio Guterres in the fight against smugglers of the country’s mineral resources and other Contraband goods from other neighbouring countries of Benin Republic, Niger and the Central African country of Cameroun into the Nigerian market.
