By Nudoiba Ojen
The Federal Government has been urges to remove the tariffs on the importation of containers of Compressed Natural Gas into Nigeria.
The Chief executive officer of Gas Initiative Nigeria (GIN), Mr Taiwo Odediran, said the high tariffs on CNG containers was at cross purpose with the Federal Government’s conscious drive towards a gas-based economy.
Odediran, who spoke in an interview in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, said, “It is a mild statement to state that the tariff is bogus and excessive and thus calls for a prompt review.
“There can be no gas utility without its containment or storage in steel pressure vessels. Gas containers or tanks are a compulsory part of any gas utility infrastructure”.
He said it was surprising to stakeholders in the gas industry to discover that a gas storage tank, an item crucial to President Bola Tinubu’s gas economy aspiration, could carry the highest taxes in the whole of the nation’s Customs and Excise Tariffs.
He said the total tariffs, as exemplified under the Customs and Excise Tariff (CET) band put at 67.5 per cent are antithetical to the growth of FG’s gas economy aspiration.
Odediran said the newly revised Import Adjustment Tax (IAT) of 40 percentage for containers of compressed and or liquefied gas which has now brought total tariff payable for this item to 67.5 per cent is making a mockery of and establishing a direct huddle to the nation’s gas economy aspirations.
According to him, the “bogus” taxes on such an item, no longer drive the economic sector of any nation, positively.
