AS the Federal Government battles to plug revenue leakages, occasioned by drop in oil prices, revelations emerged yesterday that the nation gave out waivers to the tune of N585 billion between 2011 and 2015.

This came to the fore during debate on a motion sponsored by Rafiu Ibrahim (APC, Kwara South) titled ‘Indiscriminate Use and Abuse of Waivers for Rice Importation.’

The senator noted that the Federal Government policy to encourage agriculture and agriculture business in order to diversify the economy had been significantly eroded.

In his submission, Ibrahim Gobir (Sokoto East), observed that the huge amount the Federal Government spent on waivers between 2011 and 2015 was enough to establish five local industries in each of the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

“The sum of N585 billion was given out as waivers between 2011 and 2015. If you share this amount amongst the 36 states of the federation and the FCT, each would have received the sum of N15 billion (N15,810,810,810.81).

“When you take it further down to the 109 senatorial districts, each would have received the sum of N5 billion (N5,366,972,477.0642).

This amount is more than enough to establish five industries in each state,” he said.

The Red Chamber therefore urged the Federal Government to stop all waivers on rice importation and other agricultural produce for now and mandate the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, and the comptroller of Customs, Abdullahi Dikko, to ensure that all duty due to government was recovered.

It also resolved to set up an ad-hoc committee to look at all waivers, concessions and grants, and carry out a holistic review to determine the full recovery of all government revenue that were related to this policy.

Ibrahim, who noted that the Federal Government has a policy to encourage agriculture and agriculture business as a deliberate policy to diversify the economy, acknowledged the huge amount of money lost on duty waivers to importers of rice, palm oil, energy equipment, steel and vegetable oil.

He observed that the tax incentives that were offered to encourage Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) into the country were now doing more harm than good to the nation’s economy.

According to him, “during the past recess and during an interactive session with the CBN, the CBN had revealed to the Senate how these importers have overshot their quota and now owe the Federal Government duties running into billions of naira.

These importers ordinarily should be paying, in addition to the duty on the commodity, a fine of 70 percent of duties and levies to the Federal Government. The government has failed to implement this directive and denied our people legitimate review into the Federal Government coffers.

“Some of the defaulting companies had, notwithstanding their default, been awarded fresh waivers to import more.

The Nigeria Customs Service, which ought to be enforcing compliance to duty and other revenue at the boarders, has failed to carry out its mandate and enforce compliance from these defaulters.