Wale Edun, Minister of Finance

The National Council of Managing Directors Of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA) says that the Presidential Order on  Inflation Reduction and Price Stability conflicts with the Minister of Finance Circular on zero duty rate on basic food items.

” We request that the conflict of Presidential Order on Inflation Reduction and Price stability (Fiscal policy measures, etc) Order 1st May 2024 and the Minister of Finance  Circular F17417/VI/T/6 of 8th August that was backdated to 15th of July, should be clarified,” said Lucky Eyis Amiwero, National President of NCMDLCA.

NCMDLCA in a letter to President Bola Tinubu,  dated September 4,  said: ” We hereby bring to the attention of the Federal Government of the two circulating instruments of the Federal Government with conflicting date of implementation and description of Fiscal Policy content.

We noticed a serious conflict between the date of the implementation of the Presidential Order, and the Ministers of Finance’s Circular, while the Presidential Order gave the date of commencement as 1st of May 2024,  the Minister of Finance’s Letter was backdated to 15th July 2024 as the Commencement date, while the Finance  Circular was dated 8th of August which was received by the Nigeria Customs Service on the 13th  August and  issued to the Trading public on 14th August by service

The area of concern to  the Trading public is whether the  Minister of Finance drew its strength from  the Presidential Order,  approved by the President that is, the Inflation Reduction and Price Stability (Fiscal policy measure, etc) order, 2024, which is supposed to commence on the 1st  May 2024, or the President issued a fresh order and suspend the Order that has been signed because nothing is said on the Presidential Order that has been in circulation before the Minister’s Circular and Customs implementing circular

Furthermore, the date of the Minister’s Circular was backdated by almost one(1) month, which is not in line with the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) Nigeria being a contracting party to the Agreement, which states, in Article 2:  opportunities and appropriate time period shall be provided to traders and other interested parties on new or amendment laws and regulations of general application.

Related to the movement, release, and clearance of goods, including goods in transit, are published or Information on then, giving enough time to be made otherwise publicly available, as early as possible before they entered into force, to enable traders and other interested parties to become acquainted with them.

Amiwero said that the clarification is very important to eliminate the use of dollarizing the domestic market and to stabilize it for consistent, predictable, and transparent transactions.▪︎