The House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee on the review of tax and export incentives, waivers and exemptions, has lamented the country’s annual loss of about N8 trillion to waivers and concessions.

The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. James Faleke, who bore the minds of the committee, said that available data indicated that Nigeria loses an estimated N8 trillion annually to such waivers and concessions.

“Between 2023 and 2026, the federal government projects total revenue forgone from tax incentives at ₦12.4 trillion, while the tax-to-GDP ratio remains at only 10.6%, which is among the lowest in Africa.

This is paradoxical and concerning, given the financial and fiscal challenges the nation is facing. The new tax regime has presented us with an opportunity to look inwards,” Faleke stated.

He explained that the review followed growing concerns, based on the available official data and budgetary reports that significant public revenues may have been forgone or ineffectively applied under various incentive schemes

Faleke said this was happening at a time when the nation continued to face pressing fiscal, infrastructure, and development challenges.

“While these incentives were originally designed to stimulate investment, promote exports, support strategic sectors, and grow the economy, the House has resolved that it is both necessary and timely to; assess their actual economic impacts.

Determine whether they were administered transparently and in line with due process; and ensure that Government support delivers measurable value to the Nigerian economy.“

Given the breadth and complexity of the subject matter, the Committee is conducting its work in phases. The first phase of the review focuses on four priority areas with significant fiscal and economic implications:“The Export Expansion Grant (EEG); The RT200bn FX Programme; The Pioneer Status Incentive; and Selected Oil and Gas fiscal incentives,” he said.

Nigeria lost an estimated $1.31 billion due to its failure to meet its 1.5 million-barrel-per-day quota set by OPEC between January 2025 and January 2026.

Data show cumulative shortfalls of 18.12 million barrels despite relatively firm global oil prices.

Analysts say the core challenge is not price volatility but persistent production disruptions and structural inefficiencies.

The shortfall raises fresh concerns about Nigeria’s 2026 budget assumptions and broader investor confidence in Africa’s top oil producer.

The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) has set a three year plan, up to January 2028, for the full implementation of the electronic -invoicing for tax collection in the country.

The project manager for the implementation of e-invoicing in NRS, Mr. Mohammed Bawa, disclosed this during a workshop organised by the NRS and eTransact, to sensitize taxpayers on how to transition from manual invoicing to e-invoicing.

Bawa said that the NRS is aware that the implementation may not go smoothly as planned hence it has segmented the implementation in three stages starting with the large taxpayers, then medium taxpayers and then the emerging taxpayers.

“For complete transition, we are looking at precisely January 2028.Within the last one year, we’ve been speaking directly to only large taxpayers and organizing so many engagements for them to ease the adoption process,” he said.

In the timelines, we started with the large taxpayers last year and by April this year full enforcement will start.

“We are giving attention to medium taxpayers in 2026, those with turnover between N1 billion and N5 billion.

We will do stakeholder engagements for them for three months, then we’ll do a pilot for another three months before we can announce the go-live from July 1, 2026, and enforcement January-March 2027.”

For the Emerging Taxpayers those whose turnover is below ₦1 billion, Bawa said their own engagement starts from January to March 2027, pilot rollout April-June 2027, go-live July 1, 2027, and enforcement January-March 2028.