The Organised Private Sector Exporters Association (OPEXA) has urged the federal government to settle a backlog of unutilised Negotiable Duty Credit Certificates (NDCC) of the suspended Export Expansion Grant (EEG) amounting to over N150 billion.
The Executive Secretary of OPEXA, Mr Jaiyeola Olarewaju, made the appeal in a statement at the weekend in Abuja, lamenting that operations of non-oil exporters had been paralysed by non-payment of the outstanding claims.
The EEG was introduced by the federal government in 1999 to encourage non-oil exports and cushion the effect of cost disadvantages faced by Nigerian exporters due to infrastructural deficiencies.
The grant is disbursed in the form of NDCC, which are utilised by beneficiaries for payment of Customs and Excise duty on their export shipments.
However, government suspended the scheme in January, 2014 to pave way for its review, according to the former Minister of Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Olarewaju said that the backlog of unutilised NDCC had accumulated to over N150 billion as at the end of 2013 before the scheme was suspended.
This, he lamented, has paralysed the operations of exporters.
