by The Federal government says it conceded about N1trillion through grants of various import waivers to both public and private organizations between 2011 and 2015.
This was disclosed by the minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajia, Zainab Ahmed on Friday at stakeholders’ meeting for the introduction of E-Solution for the Administration of Import Duty Waivers at the ministry headquarters. She also said that ministry on annual basis receives over 600,000 request for import duty waivers from government agencies, the private sector and non-government organizations. The E-Solution is a deployment of an automated Custom Duty Portal that will be used in the management of Customs Import Duty Exemption Management, IDEC. The initiative is the brain chide of the ministry of finance, budget and National Planning and when the system is fully operational, it will improve efficiency in services delivery, improve revenue drive leading to increase in revenue generation and would be officially commence operation in the first quarter of 2020. The ministry said the hitherto manually operating system which gives room for manipulations and leakages in revenue generation processes will be eliminated. The Minister said the initiative is one of the President Mohammadu Buhari’s giant strides and administrative ingenuity and that the project is in line with the priorities of the federal government aimed at creating employment, reducing poverty, stimulating micro-economic environment for sustainable growth and development. ‘‘Despite revenue losses due to manual processing, she said multiple use of IDEC approvals, delay in processing applications, indiscriminate allocations and subjectivity in the appropriate process have remained a major constraint in the monitoring, evaluation and standardizing the process of granting waivers and certificates.
‘‘In order to address
these challenges, the ministry has keyed into the priority programes of this
administration, embark on reforming the processes, which involves reengineering
the processes from application to issuance and validations by the Nigerian
Custom Service, to be powered by a digital technology,’’ she explained. Recall
that the Federal Executive Council, FEC recently approved this project and it
is expected that the implementation will be pursued vigorously in the first
quarter of 2020. In view of this, the minister reiterated the commitment to
work with all stakeholders in order to deliver the needed incentives to allow
economic activities to grow. According to her, the stakeholders’ meeting was
aimed at sensitizing stakeholder and to have a common ground and understanding
so that at the end the outcome will be binding on all stakeholders. Shut
Borders: What Nigerian businessmen want govt to know She said the reengineering
of the IDEC process is expected to aid the Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria
and urged stakeholders to take advantage of the IDEC reform and ensure seamless
service delivery Earlier in his welcome address, the Permanent Secretary who
was represented by Fatima Hayatou stated that the meeting couldn’t have come at
a better time than now, when the Federal government through the ministry of
finance, budget and National Planning is planning to officially launch a
project which intends to reposition the administration an application and
processes of the import duty certificate, IDEC Nigeria. She said that despite
the huge amount being conceded to manual waivers by federal government, it is
still not clear what benefits have accrued to government in returns in terms of
job creation, additional tax revenues paid by beneficiaries and the impact on
the economy of the nation. ‘‘The Import Duty Certificate is a focal tool used
by the federal government in achieving some of its fiscal policies of
increasing economic activities and employment generation I some target
sectors like power, agriculture and steel development. ‘‘Presently, the
processes of applying and processing of these waivers and the determination of
the eligibility of applicants and the validation granted are done manually,
which makes the process cumbersome. The process usually takes about 50-60 days
thereby exposing the process to subjectivity and abuse,’’ she said. To address
these challenges, Hayatou said the ministry has engaged a technology solution
limited to develop and manage the solution that could make the processes from
application to processing easier and faster by utilizing an integrating a set
of technology tools and applications for the ministry. The company she said has
invested in the digitization of all past IDEC records and procurement and the
necessary technology for the responsible principal officers, which includes
setting up IDEC Processing Centre.
Sequel to the FEC approval on the automation of IDEC
processing, she affirmed that the ministry has planned to launch the project in
the first quarter of 2020 and the process will go live and the use of this
platform to the public is by going to www.IDEC.gov.ng. She urged stakeholders to
come up with ideas that would help them take the initiative to next level.
Source: Vanguard
