The Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, on Monday approved a new import levy for sustainable financing of Nigeria’s membership subscription in the African Union (AU).
The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed made the disclosure at the end of the last FEC meeting of the administration which lasted over six hours at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa.
“The federal executive council meeting approved a new import levy for sustainable financing of Nigeria’s membership subscription in the African Union. It approved a rate of 0.2 percent as a new import levy on Cost, Insurance, and Freight (CIF) that will be charged on imports coming into Nigeria but with some exceptions.
“The exceptions includes goods originating from outside the territory of member countries that are coming into the country for consumptions. It also includes goods that are coming in for aid and also it includes goods that are originating from non-member countries but are imported through specific financing agreements that ask for such kinds of exemptions. It also exempts goods that have been ordered and are under importation process before the scheme was announced into effect.
“The purpose of this new levy is to enable the African Union member countries pay on a sustainable basis their subscriptions to African Union.
“The council also approved that for Nigeria knowing that what will accrue from this new levy will be more than what is required as subscriptions to the African Union, that the balance that will be left will be ring first and put in a special account in the Central Bank of Nigeria and will be used to financed her subscriptions to multilateral organizations as as the World Bank, African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank and institutions like that. And if there is any excess left from that in the revenue pool, it will be used to financed the budget.”
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