The federal government has so far lost a whopping N603.2billion to import duty exemption, waivers on petroleum products and increased duty on imported rice in its bid to encourage local rice production and incentivise the agriculture sector. Disclosing this to the joint Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriation yesterday in Abuja, the comptroller-general of Nigeria Customs Service, Dikko Inde, said the Customs Service has so far recorded a shortfall of 43 per cent in revenue collected in the course of the year, and blamed government policies for the revenue loss. This was as spirited efforts by the minister of state for finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama, to discredit a LEADERSHIP report which had quoted him as saying that the 2013 budget was over-bloated and practically un-implementable fell flat at the Senate. “We don’t have anything contrary to what we have published,” LEADERSHIP’s managing editor, Mr Chuks Ohuegbe, told the Senate joint committee on its report on the “unimplementable budget” published on September 16, 2013. Asked by Senator Ahmed Markafi to clarify a portion of the story attributed to the finance minister which reads “This year’s budget is over- bloated; what we are collecting is far in excess of even what was budgeted for last year”, which the senator said was confusing, Isaac Aimurie, the business editor, explained that from the story this year’s budget was over-bloated, according to the finance minister, though this year’s collection was higher than what was budgeted for last year 2012. He stressed that LEADERSHIP quoted the minister verbatim. Others in the LEADERSHIP delegation to the National Assembly included Mr Shuaib Shuaib, standing in for the editor of the daily title, and the company secretary. The Joint Committee on Finance and Appropriation directed Ngama to address queries on the financial state of the economy. “Is the 2013 budget unimplementable?” Senator Makarfi quipped as Ngama offered a stuttered rebuttal to the LEADERSHIP story following the joint panel’s queries. “I never accused the National Assembly of over-bloating the 2013 budget,” Ngama told the joint National Assembly panel. Senator Makarfi urged the finance ministry to compel government ministries, departments and agencies to bring forward the status of all ongoing projects. He advocated a “carrot and stick” approach to compel the MDAs to implement the budget in an equitable manner. Makarfi: “It is obvious there are flaws in the implementation of the budget, if people from the north-east, north-central or even the south-south are complaining, that brings the issue whether those charged with these duties are nationalistic enough in discharging their duties. He who pays the piper dictates the tune; the Ministry of Finance should compel MDAs to bring the status of all ongoing projects. We can use the carrot and stick approach to compel the MDAs to implement the budget in an equitable manner.” Ngama, for his part, said there was need to audit all the projects and see the ones that are implementable. “Let us not bring any new project till we finish the old ones,” he said. According to the Customs boss, “Waivers, that is, import duty exemption took N86.4billion off the revenue that should have accrued to government; revenue conceded to the negotiable duty certificate accounted for N59.9billion of the 43 per cent revenue loss while import substitution and increased duty on importation of rice reduced revenue by N96.9billion. Revenue loss to assemblers and manufacturers (CKD/BULK) was put at N76.1billion, revenue held in indemnities from January to March for rice and sugar amounted to N5.4billion, while loss due to close of some excise factories and de- excising of some excisable goods took away N11.8billion from the revenue books. Other losses, according to Dikko, were due to waivers on petroleum products (N236,881,899,749.05) and N2.9billion was lost to ECOWAS trade liberalisation scheme for transactions in the economic sub-region. The Customs CG also revealed that the philosophy behind the Free Trade Zone was being abused as smugglers were moving their banned imports like rice to free zones without paying duty. “Free zones are being misused. When we blocked the Seme border, these importers of banned products moved to TINAPA and Calabar port and cleared their goods without paying duty,” Dikko said, maintaining that rice mills were closing shops due to shortage of rice paddies, a development that shows that Nigeria may not be ripe for the new tariff regime to which the Customs Service was losing revenue. However, minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala said some waivers granted by the government were sector-specific and were strategically designed to grow some sectors and create jobs for Nigerians. She disclosed that government was taking a holistic look at the waivers to ascertain their gains, the revenue government was losing, and see if they have delivered on the set objectives like job creation and production, but stressed that government would be careful with the policies to avoid being seen as doing things “in a flip- flop manner”. Senate, minister differ on $1.03b Excess Crude Account Also, the Senate differed with Minister Okonjo-Iweala on moneys accruing to the Excess Crude Account (ECA) in 2013. Senator Ita Enang, who also chairs the Senate Rules and Business Committee, said that, from records available to the committee, $14.06 billion was inflows to the ECA while $9 billion was outflow, leaving a balance of $5.06 billion. Okonjo-Iweala differed, insisting that the balance in the ECA stands at $4.3 billion. The finance minister said the primary use of the account (ECA) was for the payment of oil subsidy for the country which, according to her, all tiers of government benefit from. On the status of the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), Okonjo- Iweala said the Fund stood at $1 billion. “There have been no further payments into the SWF as far as I know,” she told the joint Senate panel.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 07:26:04 +0000
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