Importers got N342bn waivers in 2 years — Minister

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajia Zainab Ahmed, has said the Federal Government granted N342 billion waivers to importers in the last two years.

She made this disclosure at a sensitisation seminar on the Automated Import Duty Exemption Certificate held at the Nigeria Customs Training College, Ikeja.

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“Approximately N341.94 billion worth of waivers were granted from August 2017 to August 2019. The scope of such requests are expanding; hence the need to have in place modern technology to drive its administration,” she said.

The minister urged importers to embrace the automated Import Duty Exemption Certificate (IDEC) as part of measures to promote trade and enhance ease of doing business at the nation’s seaports.

Ahmed who was represented at the occasion by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Aliyu Ahmed, said the digitisation process of import duty exemption is part of ways to eliminate corruption, save time and promote transparency.

She said the scope of waiver requests is expanding hence the need to have modern technology to drive the administration.

Ahmed said the automated gateway portal for IDEC processing and issuance has been in operation since 1st April 2020, on the domain, stressing that manual applications are no longer accepted

The minister added that the bottlenecks associated with import duty exemption and related sharp practices will be eradicated by the new procedure.

“Up until March 2020, we processed the grant of the IBEC incentives manually. This process was quite cumbersome, tedious, time-consuming, and was beset with undue human interface, with its attendant challenges.”

Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Rtd) said the new platform will eradicate trade-related vices such as impersonation and forgeries of signatures.

Ali who was represented by the Assistant Comptroller General and Zonal Coordinator, Zone A, Katherine Chinwe Ekekezie, also said the automation will boost investors’ confidence and make for easy detection of all forms of illegalities.