Food importers taking advantage of the Federal Government’s duty waiver must sell not less than 75 per cent of the items at the approved markets.
They are also precluded from exporting the items they import under the tariff’s waiver regime, which is a short-term measure to boost food availability and affordability.
High prices of food items have fueled inflation and made life unbearable for a large number of Nigerians.
Food inflation, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), is more than 40 per cent – the major enabler of the 34.19 per cent headline inflation.
Those who instigated protests against the government early in the month anchored it on what they called “hunger in the land”.
As part of measures by the Federal Government to alleviate the food crisis, the waiver of Customs duty and other tariffs on some categories of food items was introduced.
The policy, which took off on July 15, will end on December 31. Its objective is to reduce the cost of food.
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has estimated that the six-month tariff waiver would indirectly transfer about N188.4 billion to Nigerians as food subsidy, being the value of the revenues to be waived.
According to the NCS, the basic food items eligible for the zero per cent duty rate include husked brown rice, with a previous rate of 30 per cent; grain sorghum, 5.0 per cent; millet, 5.0 per cent; maize, 5.0 per cent; wheat, 20 per cent and beans, 20 per cent.
