#Corruption Under GEJs Watch The N1.4tr Waiver Bazaar — January 27, 2014 As part of her answers to some 50 questions posed to her recently by a committee of the House of Representatives, minister of finance Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala disclosed that the federal government granted import duty waivers/concessions to the tune of N170.7 billion between 2011 and 2013. She gave the breakdown as follows: N55.965 billion in 2011, N55.345 billion in 2012, and N59.4 billion in 2013. However, no sooner had the minister given these figures than Nigerians began to dispute them. The media was soon awash with compelling documentary evidence that suggested that import duty waivers/concessions granted in the period under review were in the region of a whopping N1.4 trillion. In fact, documents published by the Nigeria Customs Service established the fact of the N1.4 trillion, with the breakdown as follows: N480 billion in 2011, N480 billion in 2012, and N474 billion in 2013. Soon, it was apparent why the government did not readily come up with the truth in the matter. A cursory study of the Customs documents showed that about 65 per cent of beneficiaries received the waivers/concessions for goods not approved by the government, including goods which added no economic value to the country like bullet-proof vehicles, kola nuts and palm oil. As conceived originally, the waivers and exemption policy is a direct government intervention which objective is to provide incentive to improve industrial competitiveness and support job creation in the economy. That the government largely departed from these laudable goals of the waiver policy in the period under review is apparent. In fact, the chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Ahmed Makarfi, was quoted to have said, “Waivers that do not have significant benefit to the ordinary man were being granted.” According to the senator, in a particular year, “about 60 per cent of it went to a single businessman and his business empire.” This obvious abuse of the waiver/concession policy by the government deserves condemnation. Given that a handful of individuals and corporate organisations that unduly received the waivers have close relationships with the government, we are compelled to decry a betrayal of the trust reposed in government by the Nigerian people. Since Minister Okonjo-Iweala gave her disputed figure to a House of Representatives committee, it will not be out of place for the same panel, and indeed the National Assembly as a whole, to dig deeper into the waiver controversy, with a view to ascertaining how much Nigeria has lost to the policy and recovering same for the use of the suffering masses of this country. A holistic review of the waiver policy is also imperative now as we begin a new year, in order to stop further loss of revenue for the country through concession abuse. -Leadership Editorial
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 12:56:09 +0000
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