The Federal Ministry of Finance and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS)?s red tape is stalling the zero food import policy take-off two months after its announcement.

President Bola Tinubu had approved the regulation for the implementation of zero percent duty and value added tax (VAT) exemption on selected basic food items, with the policy slated to run between July 15 and December 21, 2024.

The policy has however failed to take off, dashing the hopes of millions of Nigerians who had anticipated its immediate implementation in July.

According to the guidelines, husked brown rice, grain sorghum, millet, maize, wheat, and beans are items qualified to benefit from the policy.

Findings showed that the delay in the commencement of full implementation of the policy was due to the Federal Ministry of Finance?s failure to publish a list of importers qualified to participate in the process as required by the guidelines earlier issued by the Customs in August.

Also, the Customs is yet to receive the list of importers and companies qualified to participate as stipulated in the guidelines.

?The moment the Customs issued the guidelines conveying the approval of the Federal Ministry of Finance, technically, the implementation started. But since the guidelines came from the Federal Ministry of Finance, they are also supposed to provide the list of the importers qualified to benefit from the import waiver,? Abdullahi Maiwada, national public relations of the NCS, told BusinessDay on the phone.

According to the guidelines, Maiwada said, the Federal Ministry of Finance is supposed to provide the Customs with the list of importers qualified to benefit from the import waiver.

On the implementation status, the Customs spokesman said the Federal Ministry of Finance would be in the appropriate position to clarify because the responsibility of Customs is to implement the policy that comes from the Federal Ministry of Finance.

?So, you need to ask the ministry if the list has been provided to the Customs as supposed,? he added.

Meanwhile, efforts to get a reaction from the Federal Ministry of Finance proved abortive as the Ministry?s director of press failed to respond to questions on the zero duty food import policy implementation status.

Nigerians have been hard hit by high food prices due to a combination of factors, including insecurity, high cost of logistics and inputs. Food inflation slowed to 37.52 percent in August 2024 from 39.53 percent in July, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). However, 37.52 percent signifies a significant increase from 29.34 percent reported in August 2023.

The bureaucracy, particularly from the Ministry of Finance, has drowned the enthusiasm of importers and Nigerians who are beginning to see the situation as ?one of the missed opportunities.?

?This policy will be meaningless if the window elapses without Nigerians benefiting from it,? Jonathan Nicole, immediate past president of the Shippers Association of Lagos, told our correspondent.

Nicole said food-related imports need to be treated as emergency shipments, stressing that the government should allow them in urgently.

The hardship faced by Nigerians presently, he said, can be likened to that seen in war zones ? despite the country not being at war.

While calling for transparency in the implementation of the policy, Nicole said that hand-picking special importers to bring in emergency food items should not be encouraged.

He called on the Federal Ministry of Finance to simplify emergency services for Nigerians.

The Federal Ministry of Finance will periodically provide the Nigeria Customs Service with a list of importers and their approved quotas to facilitate the importation of these basic food items within the framework of the policy, according to the zero-duty food import implementation guidelines.

The guidelines say that such importers must be companies incorporated in Nigeria and have been operational for at least five years. They must have filed annual returns and financial statements and paid taxes and statutory payroll obligations for the past five years.

?Companies importing husked brown rice, grain sorghum, or millet need to own a milling plant with a capacity of at least 100 tons per day, operate for at least four years, and have enough farmland for cultivation.

?Those importing maize, wheat, or beans must be agricultural companies with sufficient farmland or feed mills/agro-processing companies with an out-grower network for cultivation,? the guideline further states.

But the situation does not sit well with importers and manufacturers who will likely be beneficiaries of the policy.

?It is very true that the implementation is yet to commence and quite unfortunate,? a source close to one of the multinationals, which also imports some of the listed food items, said.

?Since the Minister of Agriculture announced it in July and Finance backed it up late August with a circular, we are in September and almost entering October and there is no beneficiary list yet for something that is supposed to be for a period of six months,? the source noted.

A food Importer who does not want his name in print said, ?If the policy had been implemented from July, everyone would have seen its impact on inflation. But non-implementation of the policy means two things: civil service red tape slowing down policy implementation and lack of a political will to ensure that policy announcements are implemented.? (BusinessDay)

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