Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, has said that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a new import levy on Cost, Insurance, and Freight (CIF) that will be charged on imports coming into the country.
Ahmed told journalists at the end of the weekly meeting of the FEC presided over by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, on Monday in Abuja that a rate of 0.2 percent was approved as the new import levy on imports coming into Nigeria from African Union countries.
The minister explained that there were some exceptions on goods originating outside the territory of member countries.
“The council approved a rate of 0.2% as a new import levy on Cost, Insurance, and Freight (CIF) that will be charged on imports coming into Nigeria, but with some exceptions,” she said.
According to her, the exceptions include goods originating from outside the territory of member countries that are coming into the country for consumption.
“It also includes goods coming in for aid,” she said.
She added that the purpose of the new levy is to enable the African Union member countries pay on a sustainable basis their subscriptions to African Union.
The minister added that the council also approved that the balance that will be left will be put in a special account in the Central Bank of Nigeria and will be used to financed her subscriptions to multilateral organizations as the World Bank, African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank and institutions like that.
According to her, if there is any excess left from that in the revenue pool, it will be used to finance the budget.
She also said the second approval was the setting up of the steering committee to be chaired by the Vice President for the design and implementation of a national single window.
The minister explained that the national single window is a web portal that would be able to integrate all the government agencies that are operators and implementers in the port business or trading in the port system.
She also disclosed that Council also approved an extension of a Central Bank of Nigeria intervention that will be used to continue to support the power sector specifically the generation arm of the sector.
“This is based on a commitment that we signed into as a country, where we have several guarantees to the Generation Companies (GenCos) to bridge any gap that they have after the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) has settled them,” she said.
GIK/APA