Aliko Dangote was granted an illegal N1 billion import duty waiver and concessions to import rice by the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the Senate has revealed.
The adhoc Committee on Import Duty waivers said in the rice sector alone, the Federal government lost to N1 billion to Dangote Limited, Kersuk Farms N1.9 billion, Bua group N3.7 billion, Elephant group N1.5 billion, Golden Penny N284 milliom, Millan group N1.8 billion because they did not meet the criteria for such.
Report obtained by the committee from Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) revealead that Federal government lost N78 billion in 2011 , 2012- N128billion, 2013- N46 billion, 2014- N87 billion, 2015- N106 billion through waivers, Concession and grants.
The indiscriminate granting of import duty waivers and concessions by the immediate past administration were between 2011- 2015.
Presenting its report at plenary on Tuesday, chairman, Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Import Duty waivers, Concessions and Grants, Senator Adamu Aliero, listed the major companies that benefitted from the fraud and Dangote Nigeria Limited, Elephant group and others in waivers, concessions and grants worth about N447 billion.
The Committee discovered gross abuse of waivers, grant and Concession by Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDA) especially the Budget Office of the Federation.
According to the report, the Budget Office continued to abuse Presidential approval process through reliance on staled delegated power by former President Umaru Musa Yar’adua to Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, then Minister of Finance.
Also, the report revealed that customs duty waivers and concessions have been used by the budget office of the Federation to entrench a very destructive patronage system to our economy, where by very few operators in the economy were singled-out for favours resulting to unfair competition in the system.