Nigeria loses N34 trillion to import duty waivers

Nigeria lost N34 trillion, which represents 61 percent of the 2025 budget, to import waivers in the year 2025.  
The Comptroller-General, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, says the value of Import Duty Exemption Certificate (IDEC) approvals granted by the federal government for imported goods and equipment rose to N34 trillion in 2025. 
Adeniyi made the disclosure known in an investigative hearing on the Senate Committee on Finance on Monday, July 13.  
Adeniyi said the country’s import duty exemption certificate issuance has depleted the nation’s revenue.  
He noted that the federal government’s fiscal measures have both positive and negative impacts on the service’s revenue generation capacity.  
According to him, Customs would have generated significantly more revenue over the years if not for certain government policies and other external factors that constrained its operations. 
He identified the Import Duty Exemption Certificate (IDEC) scheme, introduced in March 2020, as one of the major policies affecting Customs’ revenue. 
He said, “IDEC approvals reached about N34 trillion in 2025, 60 percent of which was rightly done by the government related to military hardware procurements, which attracted duty exemptions because of Nigeria’s prevailing security challenges.  
“Other government-backed waivers included the importation of compressed natural gas (CNG), electric and hybrid vehicles, healthcare equipment and medical supplies, industrial machinery and manufacturing inputs, and food import intervention programs.” 
Adeniyi, however, stressed that fiscal policy should not be assessed solely from the perspective of revenue generation but also by its broader economic and social impact. 
He urged the government to establish stronger monitoring mechanisms to evaluate whether beneficiaries of duty waivers were delivering the intended outcomes, including lower prices, increased production and improved access to healthcare. 
Customs generated N7.28 trillion as revenue for 2025.  
This means that Nigeria lost more than four times its generated revenue in the year under review to import waivers amounting to N34 trillion.  
Similarly, the IDEC approvals for 2025 accounted for 61.8 percent of the country’s N54.99 trillion budget in the 2025 fiscal year.  
Earlier, Adeniyi disclosed that out of the N11.04 trillion revenue target for 2026, the NCS had generated N4.5 trillion as of June 30, leaving about N7 trillion to meet its annual target.