President Muhammadu Buhari |
All effort of the
Chairman of the Ebony Agro Limited Nigeria, the former minister of commerce and
industry, Mr. Charles Ugwu under President late Yar’adua fell into deaf ears of
the Senate Adhoc committee on waiver, concession and grants as Senator Adamu Aliero
ordered that the company should pay N228million to government cover being a
penalty for importing 10,000 metric tons higher its allotted allocation just as
the same applied to other companies.
The company
chairman, Mr. Charles Ugwu who admitted the offence however passionately
pleaded that the company be forgiven being the first indigenous company that
responded to local production of milled rice to mitigate challenges of paddy
off takers from farmers saying his company did not import finished rice but
rather processed rice adding the payment can affect the production operation of
the company for now.
All the members of
the committee unanimous agreed that there is nothing the committee could do to
favour any company that has not conformed to quality of waivers given as
Senators Olugbenga Aishafa and Alasoadura said the rule cannot be bent for any
company rather than doing the right things as demanded by the Federal
government levy rules and laws.
In his chat with
NTA, the Chairman, Adhoc Committee on waiver, concession and grant on food
import, Sen. Adamu Aliero said that all effort would be made to ensure all
necessary revenue of the Federal Government through the custom duty back to her
cover stressed many of the waiver do not follow due process as there was no
basis for food importation our farmers can produce.
Sen. Aliero pointed
that companies who are producing what we cannot will still enjoy waiver
benefits as long as there is status permit that guarantee them the bringing of
goods that are duty bound.
He said that “but unfortunately it was discovered that the traffic
were never consulted right from 2011 up till now. These waivers are just issued
without recourse to due process and that is why there is a lot of abuses
associated to it and we are hoping to come out with good recommendation that
will stop abuses and allow due process to be followed in giving probity
waivers. That is what we want to do.
There are waives that are good. For
example an industry that is coming to Nigeria for the first time to manufacture
goods or services that is not available in the country. And normally they are entitled
to bring in goods that are duty free and such thing is designed for the economy
which is good for us as it is allowed. First, the goods are not what we can
manufacture, and secondly, if they come and establish industry, they will
provide employment for Nigerians and this is one of the incentives used by most
of the developing countries and Nigeria should not be an exception.
We are
desirous that waiver should be issued but against the indiscriminately issue of
waivers that are extended to consumable that could be produced locally. I give
you example; there is no point in giving waiver to rice. We can produce rice
locally. We have farmers, land and to be honestly with you, we can equally feed
ourselves. By giving waiver, you are more or less discouraging the local
farmers because our farmers cannot compete with farmers in India, Thailand in
terms of facility you can ever think of like R&T Research Development unit
are up to date”.
Both Messrs Stallion Group and Olam International which were
both involved in rice importation running to the tune of N44billion naira as
debt being for import duties on 457,000 metric tons of rice since last year May
has also been ordered by the Senate Committee chairman to pay without delay
saying “Nigeria will not fold hands and watch the huge debt swept under the
carpet.
There is no way government will ignore this kind of money. We have to
ensure that this money is collected and deposited into the Federation Account”.
The companies’ allegation according to Sen. Aliero was that
they imported rice into the country without paying waiver, off-loaded it into
their warehouses and refused to pay the required duties when asked by the
Customs authority adding that instead of payment Stallion group decided to take
court action agains NCS. He accused the company of exceeding the import quota
of 157,000 to 457,000.
Defending the company, the Executive Director of Stallion
Group, Harpreet Singh said that their mission in Nigeria was to ensure the
country’s food sufficiency in rice production saying the nation’s borders were
porous and that the former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had granted the
approval based on rice fiscal policy on May 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment