The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the automated gateway platform for the issuance of Import Duty Exemption Certificate (IDEC) as well as vehicle identification and registration number.
The council meeting presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, on Wednesday, at the presidential villa, Abuja gave the nod to the initiative to ensure that government effectively tracks and manages all revenue accruable from import duties and other charges.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, stated that the automated process will enhance efficiency, block leakages and reduce the amount of time it takes to review exemption request and provide the necessary approvals.
She said: “Today the Ministry of Finance sort the approval on a project which is designed to manage an automated gateway platform for the issuance of import duty exemption certificates as well as vehicle identification and registration number.
The Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning are responsible for the ministry and the country’s National finance and one of our responsibilities is implementing fiscal incentives that are used to attract investors to promote non-oil exports as well encourage industrialization programme and stimulate growth in the economy.
“So, what we do is to handle applications for exemptions that come to the ministry. Various categories of import duty payments and other tax incentives and some of these exemptions cover a number of sectors including the downstream gas utilization projects, the Agro-Allied processing projects, Aviation-commercial aircraft engines and spare parts, automobile assembly, iron and steel production, power including thermal hydro, solar and wind, textiles- plants, machinery and equipment that are imported for use for mining operations.
“In the process of these exemptions, a couple of years, we realise that the government was actually ceding quite a significant amount of revenue through this process. Because the process was largely paper-based.
“We got approval today to automate this process, to enhance efficiency, to block possible leakage and also to reduce the amount of time that the ministry takes to review this exemption request and provide the necessary approvals.
“This portal will be managed by both the ministry as well as the Nigeria customs service.”
Speaking on the vehicle identification and registration number, Ahmed said any user can assess it to find out information on vehicles.
She added: “On our part, on the IDEC component, we will be able to see how much waivers have been granted to which sectors and also track the performers of those waivers and reduce the cost subsequently.
“The portal is undertaking in the form of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement with Forecore Technology Solution Limited, as the preferred partner to Develop, Deploy, Manage and Transfer for a 10-year concession period before transferring back to the ministry. “They are to earn revenue which is coming from the IDEC application fee. We are going to share the revenue in the promotion of 90 per cent to the government and 10 per cent to Messers Forecore Technology Solution Limited. They are earning this 10 per cent to enable them to recover the cost of deployment as well as the management because they will also be the ones managing the project over this 10 year period.”
The minister also reacted to the alarm raised by the Senate that over N20 trillion revenue collected as stamp duties, which the legislature said has not been remitted.
Ahmed said: “The stamp duties up till now has been a subject of litigation between the Nigerian Postal Service and Federal Inland Revenue Service. So, while the banks when you make any transfer charge you N50, these revenues were not accruing to government. They were pulled at the Central Bank and we also feel and I don’t have the facts, that there will be some funds being held by the commercial banks as well.
“The Central Bank has itself said that they are holding about N43 billion now but in the new finance Act that the two houses of the National Assembly just passed, there is an amendment that is made to the stamp duties Act that relates to the mode of collection.
“The finance bill has made the FIRS as the collecting agency so, that addresses the issue of the litigation.
“So, going forward, the revenue should be remitted as they are being collected unlike what has happened in the past that the funds were kept ina special account because of the litigation that is going on.”
On his part, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said council approved two memos one of which was to resolve conflicts between contractors.
He said: “The Ministry of Works and Housing presented two memoranda seeking approval of the federal executive council. The first memorandum was to resolve conflicts between existing contracts and to rescope those contracts so that the roads can be completed. “There are two of our contractors working in contiguous locations on the Ijebu-Igbo – Onomi road toward the Oyo State border which is in Ogun State and also the Ijebu-Igbo Ita-Igba-Owonowe to Ibadan connecting Oyo and Ogun State.
“So the council approved the revision, the rescope of work between the two contractors at the existing contract price. So it’s just a revision of the rescope of works because we are not changing the contract price, we are assigning responsibilities because it was an existing council approval we couldn’t vary it in the ministry we had to come back.
“The other was the approval of two roads, the Tagwai-Kansa road to Doguwa in Kano for N8.436 billion and Alkaleri to Situk Road in Bauchi state for N32.015 billion, these are roads that were in the 2019 budget. So this is part of the implementation of the 2019 budget before the end of the hearing. Council also approved the variation.”
Also speaking, the Minister of State, Health Senator Oloruniba Mamora, said council approved at a contract under the ministry of health for the purchase of 15 operational vehicles by NAFDAC at the cost of N307.562 million which essentially are meant to improve mobility.
He said: “Recall that NAFDAC is a regulatory agency and has a lot to do in terms of fieldwork. So in order to improve mobility and enhance efficiency that has to do with regulatory, checking drugs, food items, water production. So they need to look around to check and confirm and certify. So that is the need for those operational vehicles.”
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