ABUJA: The Senate’s Ad- Hoc Committee on Waivers is set to summon ministries, departments and agencies of government including the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Customs Service, to give relevant information to unearth the rot waivers have caused in the system.
The Senate committee was set up in July to carry out holistic review of the policy with a view to determining revenue losses incurred by government. It has uncovered series of ways the policy is being used by importers and relevant government agencies to defraud the nation of billions of naira, that otherwise would have been accruable revenues into the federation account.
This was disclosed yesterday by the chairman of the committee, Sen Adamu Aliero (APC, Kebbi Central), in a chat with journalists after the sitting of the committee.
Aliero who was not specific on the alleged rots uncovered so far, said the whole thing would be made open at the stage of public hearing and in the final report the committee would submit to the Senate.
He said, “We have sent letters of invitations to MDAs like the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Nigeria and of course, the Nigeria Customs Service, to give us relevant information that will help us to carry out the assignment given us very effectively and in fact, unearth the rot waivers have caused in the system.
“We are very happy with the responses we have gotten so far from the MDAs. What we are doing now is to start compiling the reports and make our recommendations before a public hearing will be held where the abuse of the policy, either by importers or relevant government agencies, will be made open to Nigerians.”
He added that the committee would be meeting again on Tuesday where final decisions would be taken on how it will go about the public hearing.
The Senate, based on a motion by Senator Rafiu Ibrahim (APC, Kwara Central) in July, where he alleged that Nigeria lost N585 billion between 2011 and 2014 to waivers on rice and other food items, set up the committee to look into the policy regime and carry out its holistic review with a view to determining government revenues lost to waivers.
