The Senate Committee on Finance has warned heads of some government agencies of severe sanctions for failing to appear physically before it for discussions on their revenue profiles.
Chairman of the Committee, Senator Muhammad Sani Musa, issued the warning during an interactive session with revenue-generating agencies in Abuja.
The agencies whose chief executives failed to honour the committee’s invitation included the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, the Industrial Training Fund, and the Federal Medical Centre Jabi, among others.
During the session, the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, disclosed that the value of Import Duty Exemption Certificate approvals on certain imported goods and equipment rose to ₦34 trillion in 2025.
He explained that government policies at different times have affected the revenue-generating capacity of the Customs Service, both positively and negatively.
According to him, the Nigeria Customs Service could have generated significantly more revenue in recent years were it not for some of these policy interventions.
Mr. Adeniyi identified the Import Duty Exemption Certificate policy introduced in March 2020 as one of the factors constraining Customs revenue generation.
He revealed that exemption approvals reached about ₦34 trillion in 2025, including waivers granted for the importation of military hardware due to prevailing security challenges in the country.
Other government-backed waivers, he said, covered the importation of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), electric and hybrid vehicles, healthcare equipment and medical supplies, industrial machinery and manufacturing inputs, as well as food import intervention programmes.
The Customs boss, however, stressed that fiscal policy should not be viewed solely from the perspective of revenue generation but also in terms of achieving broader economic and social objectives.
He suggested that the government should establish stronger monitoring mechanisms to determine whether beneficiaries of duty waivers are delivering intended benefits such as lower prices, increased production and improved access to healthcare.
Earlier, he informed the committee that out of the ₦11.04 trillion revenue target for 2026, the Service had generated ₦4.5 trillion as of June 30, leaving a balance of about ₦7 trillion to meet the annual target.
Meanwhile, Bello Gulmare, Deputy Director of Monitoring and Evaluation at the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, alleged that the Nigeria Customs Service had an outstanding liability of ₦8.9 billion in unremitted operating surplus to the Consolidated Revenue Fund as of 2019, an allegation strongly rejected by Customs officials.
A similar allegation of non-remittance amounting to ₦13.9 billion was also made against the Corporate Affairs Commission for the period between 2023 and 2025.
Responding, the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission, Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, said the liabilities were being settled gradually.
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