The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Abdullahi Dikko, Monday disclosed that the Federal Government has recorded a revenue loss of N603 billion this year arising from waivers and others sources.
He disclosed this while answering questions from members of the Senate Joint Committee on Finance and Appropriations that is looking into the books of all federal government revenue-generating agencies as it affects the 2013 budget.
The Customs Comptroller-General told the Senate Committee that the projected revenue for 2013 is N718 billion, but only N530 billion has been realised, leaving a shortfall of N188b.
According to him, the exact revenue loss so far this year is N603, 236, 211, 198.93 billion.
Dikko, attributed the huge revenue loss to eight different reasons. He said out of this figure, waivers on petroleum products gulped a whopping N236, 881, 899, 749.05.
Also, the CGC told the Committee: waivers, that’s Import Duty Exemption-N86, 484,973,793.00; revenue conceded to the NDCC instrument-N59, 555,073; import substitution and industrialization in drastic reaction in import of rice-96,945,233,060.00.
Other reasons are: revenue loss to manufacturers and assemblers (CKD/BULK)-N76,119,889,825.12; revenue held in indemnities, Jan-Mar 2013 Rice/Sugar-N5,430,000,000.00; drop in excise duty revenue due to close of some excise factories and de-excising of some excisable goods-N11,871,723,000.00.
Another source, the Customs CG said is revenue loss to WRLS (ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme) for transaction entered in the economic sub-region-N2, 947,428,861.00.
However, Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, defended government policies that resulted in revenue loss, saying “We are aware of the sharp decline in revenues generation of the Customs Service in the current fiscal year partly due to the government policies mentioned.
“But, we are studying the whole situation to decide what other actions should be taken because we need to be sure that the job intended to be sure that the job intended to be created are commensurate to the revenues being lost”.
