The Federal Government has said that it granted import duty waivers worth N341.94bn from August 2017 to August 2019.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this at a one-day sensitisation seminar on the Automated Import Duty Exemption Certificate at the Nigeria Customs Training College, Kano.
The Minister, who was represented by the Kano State Commissioner of Finance, Alhaji Shehu Na-Allah Kura, said between 2011 and 2015, the Federal Government had conceded about N1.024tn through the grant of only four types of incentives including import duty waivers, VAT waivers, pioneer status non-oil companies and pioneer status PPT on oil companies.
She said, “The scope of such requests are expanding hence the need to have in place modern technology to drive its administration.
“Up till March 2020, we processed the grant of the IDEC incentives annually. The process was quite cumbersome, tedious, time consuming and it was beset with undue human interference with its attendant challenges.”
According to her, the Federal Government created the new platform for administering and easing the process of acquiring import exemption certificate (IDEC) in the country as part of efforts to provide incentives to stimulate industrialisation and economic growth.
She said the decision to create the platform was in line with the Federal Government’s policy on ease of doing business in the country.
According to her, the IDEC is a tool used by the Federal Government in achieving some of its fiscal policies of increasing economic activities and employment in certain target sectors
In his remarks, the Controller General of Customs, Retired Col. Hameed Ali, represented by the Commandant, Customs Training College, Deputy Controller, Laurence Banye, said the approved E-customs project that signalled the beginning of end-to-end automation of Nigeria Customs Service and procedures would usher a new regime of total automation of all trans-border trade activities.