Following the loss of billions of naira to waivers, the senate yesterday urged the federal government to stop all waivers on rice and agriculture produce importation for now and mandated the central bank governor, and the comptroller -general of customs to ensure that all duty due to government were recovered.
The senate also set up an adhoc committee to look into all waivers and carry out holistic reviews to determine the full recovery of all government’s revenue related to this policy.
The committee which was given two weeks to report back to the senate has senators Gershom Bassey, Sam Egwu, Danjuma La’ah, Stella Oduah, Tayo Aladura and Sabo Mohammed as members while Adamu Aliero is the chairman.
The resolutions are sequel to the motion sponsored by Senator Adebayo Ibrahim ( Kwara) titled: “Indiscriminate Use and Abuse of Waivers for Rice Importation.” Leading the debate, Senator Ibrahim noted that the federal government has a policy to encourage agriculture business as a deliberate policy to diversify the economy.
He also observed that this policy especially relating to agriculture has become significantly eroded and gradually made nonsense of by indiscriminate abusive grants of waivers, concessions and grants especially on rice importation.
The lawmaker also noted that during the past recess and during an interactive session with the CBN, the CBN had revealed to the senate how these importers had overshot their quota and now owed the federal government duties running into billions of naira
The federal government loses annually N71billion on duty waivers especially to importers of rice, palm oil, energy equipment, steel and vegetable oil and in 2011, government gave import duty waivers to 10 rice and palm oil importing companies alone amounting to N150billion.
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.
“These tax incentives offered to encourage foreign direct investment into the country is now doing more harm than good to the economy as monies which could have been invested in public schools, hospital, roads and other social infrastructure are lost mindlessly without consequences.”
