Mrs Zainab Ahmed, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, says the plan to deploy Electronic Import Duty Exemption Certificate (IDEC) by the Federal Government will address revenue losses.
Ahmed said those losses were caused by manual processing of applications.
The minister stated this at a stakeholders’ meeting on the introduction of E-Solution for the administration of import duty waivers in Abuja.
Represented by Dr Mohammed Dikwa, the Permanent Secretary, Special Duties in the ministry, the minister explained that incidents of multiple use of IDEC approval and delay in processing applications had remained serious constraints.
She also said that indiscriminate allocation to some undeserved organisations and individuals had been a problem in monitoring, evaluation and standardising the process of granting waivers and certificates.
Ahmed stated that in order to address those challenges, the ministry had keyed into the priority of this administration to grow the economy and protect lives and properties, and fight corruption.
She added that based on this, the ministry decided to initiate and embark on reforming the IDEC process.
“This involves re-engineering the processes for the application to issuance and validation by the Nigeria Customs Service to be driven by digital technology.
“I, therefore, consider this meeting very apt and timely as we plan to inaugurate this laudable project in the first quarter of 2020.
“You will recall that the Federal Executive Council recently approved this project and it is expected that the implementation will be pursued vigorously.
“In view of this development, the ministry wishes to reiterate its commitment to work with all stakeholders in order to deliver the much needed fiscal incentives to allow economic activities to grow.
“The ministry will open its door for further collaboration as we plan for the next phase of implementation project,’’ she said.
According to her, the meeting is aimed at sensitising stakeholders to have a common ground and understanding so that at the end, the outcome will be binding on all.
She restated that the re-engineering of IDEC process will further facilitate the ease of doing business in the country.
