By CHARLES CHIJIOKE
ABUJA — The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Adewale Adeniyi, has revealed that import duty exemption approvals soared to ₦34 trillion in 2025, warning that the huge volume of government-approved waivers has significantly reduced the revenue the Service could have generated.
Afrilensnews reports that Adeniyi made the disclosure during an investigative session with the Senate Committee on Finance in Abuja, where revenue-generating agencies appeared to account for their performance and fiscal contributions.
According to the Customs boss, while the Service has continued to improve revenue collection, government fiscal policies granting import duty exemptions have had a major impact on its earnings.
“The NCS would have generated significantly higher revenue over the years if not for government-approved import duty waivers and other external factors affecting collections,” he said.
Adeniyi explained that the Import Duty Exemption Certificate (IDEC) scheme, introduced in March 2020, accounted for approvals worth about ₦34 trillion in 2025 alone. He disclosed that nearly 60 per cent of the approvals covered duty-free importation of military hardware to support Nigeria’s security operations.
He added that other duty exemptions approved by the Federal Government included imports of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), electric and hybrid vehicles, healthcare equipment, medical supplies, industrial machinery, manufacturing inputs and food import intervention programmes.
The Customs chief, however, argued that import duty waivers should not be judged only by the revenue lost to government, insisting that such policies are designed to achieve broader economic and social goals, including improving security, supporting industries and easing the cost of essential goods.
He nevertheless urged the Federal Government to strengthen oversight of beneficiaries of the waivers.
“The Federal Government should establish stronger monitoring mechanisms to ensure beneficiaries of duty waivers deliver the intended economic outcomes, including lower consumer prices, increased local production and improved healthcare access.”
The Senate Committee on Finance also expressed dissatisfaction over the failure of several heads of government agencies to honour its invitation to the hearing.
Among the agencies absent were the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) and the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Jabi.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Sani Musa, warned that the chief executives of the affected agencies must appear before the committee at its next sitting or risk severe sanctions under Senate rules.
The disclosure comes at a time the Federal Government is pursuing aggressive revenue mobilisation to fund the 2025 budget while also introducing targeted fiscal incentives to support key sectors of the economy.
The scale of the waivers is expected to spark fresh debate over whether the exemptions are delivering the intended benefits, including lower prices for consumers, stronger local manufacturing, improved healthcare access and enhanced national security, or whether tighter oversight is needed to prevent abuse of the policy.
