The Nigeria Customs Service has attributed a significant reduction in its revenue potential to the Federal Government’s extensive import duty waiver programme, revealing that approvals granted under the Import Duty Exemption Certificate (IDEC) scheme climbed to ₦34 trillion in 2025.
The disclosure was made on Monday by the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adeniyi, during an investigative session of the Senate Committee on Finance with revenue-generating agencies in Abuja.
The hearing also witnessed the Senate issuing a stern warning to several government agencies, including 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, over their failure to appear before the committee.
Speaking before lawmakers, Adeniyi explained that government fiscal policies have continued to shape the revenue profile of the Customs Service, noting that while some policies stimulate economic growth, they also reduce the agency’s capacity to generate income.
According to him, despite Customs consistently ranking among Nigeria’s highest revenue-generating institutions, collections would have been considerably higher without the extensive duty exemptions approved by the government.
Highlighting the impact of the policy, Adeniyi identified the Import Duty Exemption Certificate programme, introduced in March 2020, as one of the most significant factors affecting revenue.
“IDEC approvals reached about ₦34 trillion in 2025, 60 per cent 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 importation of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), electric and hybrid vehicles, healthcare equipment and medical supplies, industrial machinery and manufacturing inputs, and food import intervention programmes.”
While acknowledging the revenue implications of the waivers, the Customs Comptroller-General argued that such incentives should not be evaluated solely on the basis of lost government earnings.
He maintained that duty exemptions also support broader national objectives, including security, healthcare delivery, industrial expansion and economic development.
However, Adeniyi called for stronger oversight of the waiver regime to ensure beneficiaries fulfil the objectives for which the incentives were granted, including reducing consumer prices, boosting local manufacturing and expanding access to essential healthcare services.
Earlier in his presentation, the Customs boss disclosed that the service had generated ₦4.5 trillion as of June 30, 2026, out of its ₦11.04 trillion revenue target for the year, leaving roughly ₦7 trillion still to be realised before the close of the fiscal year.
The Senate hearing also brought to the fore disputes over the remittance of operating surpluses by federal agencies.
Representing the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC), Deputy Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, Bello Gulmare, alleged that the Nigeria Customs Service had an outstanding liability of ₦8.9 billion arising from unremitted operating surplus into the Consolidated Revenue Fund as of 2019.
Customs officials, however, rejected the allegation.
The commission also claimed that the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) owed ₦13.9 billion in outstanding operating surplus covering the 2023 to 2025 period.
Responding, the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission, Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, said the commission had been making gradual payments toward settling the outstanding obligations.
Following the exchanges, the Senate Committee on Finance directed the CAC, the Fiscal Responsibility Commission and its own secretariat to reconcile their records and determine the actual outstanding liabilities.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Sani Musa (Niger East), ordered that the reconciliation exercise be completed within two weeks before the next engagement with the affected agencies.
He said: “A detailed report on the outcome of the planned meeting should be ready within the next two weeks for another interface with CAC.
“Heads of agencies like NCAA, ITF, SMEDAN, FMC Jabi and others who failed to physically attend today’s session should unfailingly make themselves available at the next sitting or risk severe sanction through invocation of the relevant section of our rules against them.”
The Senate has intensified scrutiny of government revenue-generating agencies in recent months as part of efforts to improve public revenue, enforce compliance with the Fiscal Responsibility Act and ensure the timely remittance of operating surpluses into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Lawmakers have also increased oversight of tax incentives and import duty waivers amid concerns over their growing impact on Nigeria’s non-oil revenue generation.
