FG Moves Against Import Waivers’ Scam
- Floats automated processes
BY COBHAM NSA, ABUJA – The Federal Government says the planned Automation of Import Duty Exemption Certificate (IDEC) and Vehicle Number Identification (VREG) processes will curb the huge loss of revenue currently being suffered by the country
This as the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning admitted that years of granting waivers to importers have only brought economic woes to Nigeria with trillions of Naira lost in the process to individual pockets through sharp practices.
The Permanent Secretary, Special Duties in the Ministry, Dr Mohammed K. Dikwa, who confirmed the precarious state of things, said with over 600,000 different requests annually on import duty waivers from various stakeholders, government has regrettably not derived any visible benefits therein.
Speaking at an intensive stakeholders’ forum for the Automation of IDEC and VREG processes in Abuja, Dr Dikwa also blamed the existing manual system for “exposing the process to subjectivity and abuse.”
He lamented that “despite these huge figures, it is still not clear what benefits have accrued to government in return in terms of jobs created, additional tax revenues paid by beneficiaries and other impact to the economy”.
“The process of applying for and processing of waivers, determining eligibility of applicants, validating previously granted waivers, reporting utilisation of waivers are currently all manual. This results in lack of transparency and lengthy bureaucratic process that could take upwards of usually between 60 to 180 days, thereby exposing the process to subjectivity and abuse.”
Dikwa, represented by a Director in the Department of Technical Services of the Ministry, Mrs Fatima Hayatu, said the Federal Government’s planned launch the Automation of IDEC and VREG processes in the first quarter of year 2020 is part of measures to address this huge financial loss in the economy.
The Permanent secretary said the Import Duty Exemption Certificate must henceforth serve its purpose as a tool used by the Federal Government to achieve some of its fiscal policies of increasing economic activities and employment generation in some target sectors.
In this direction. the Ministry has therefore engaged a technology solutions firm, FourCore Technology Solutions Limited, to develop and manage a solution that makes the processes – from application to processing, granting, validating, renewing and checking levels of utilisation – much easier and faster by utilising and integrating a set of technology tools and applications.
The company has been mandated to provide “the infrastructure to automate the entire process end-to-end, including a dashboard that provides empirical data to measure the impact of this Fiscal Policy lever to the economy”.
The Ministry said aside investing in the technology to achieve its set goal, it has also invested in the digitalisation of all past IDEC records and procured the necessary technology for the responsible principal officers, including an IDEC Processing Centre at the ministry.
The second component of the project, the Vehicle Identification Number Registration (VREG), is expected to provide a national repository of all VINs in the country, including the ones coming in through the national ports of entry.
Available statistics indicate that Vehicle importation accounts for about 30 per cent of the total import duties alone, which represents a significant portion of our total import.
According to Dr Dikwa, in line government’s efforts at achieving transparency and openness in its governance processed, a national VIN system will provide “a centralised registry that draws historical data from a global VIN repository to keep track of vehicles coming in and out of the country”.
He explained that the VIN registration process will also serves as “a check for all smuggled vehicles into the country as it provides a unified database for all vehicles independent of their points of entry and provides a basis for Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to effectively collect duties on smuggled vehicles”.
In addition, the VREG component is expected provide the nation with a vehicular asset registry that can easily be leveraged for movable asset valuation, insurance, taxation and correct assessments.
Current data at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning showed that over 600,000 different requests on import duty waivers are received annually from government agencies, private sector operators, non-governmental organization (NGOs) through its fiscal policy measure of granting waivers as a booster to the nation’s economy.
