The Federal Government has declared a 150-day duty-free import window for various food commodities, announcing the suspension of duties, tariffs, and taxes for imports through both land and sea borders.
In a statement issued on Monday, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, specified that the suspension applies to imported maize, husked brown rice, wheat, and cowpeas.
Kyari explained that this 150-day duty-free import window is part of a broader set of measures to be rolled out over the next 180 days aimed at mitigating food inflation in Nigeria. These steps are integral to the accelerated stabilization and advancement plan recently presented to President Bola Tinubu by the economic management team (EMT) under the Presidential Economic Coordination Council (PECC), which was established by the president in March.
The minister pointed out that multiple taxes and levies, infrastructural challenges, and sheer profiteering by marketers and traders have significantly contributed to rising food prices. “Over the past several months, we have all been witnesses to the escalating cost of food items in all parts of the country. There is virtually no food item that has not had its price raised to a level higher than what many Nigerians can afford,” Kyari noted.
“The affordability crisis in our food security system has been indexed by data from the National Bureau of Statistics, which by the last count, put food inflation at 40.66%,” he added. “We have heard the cries of Nigerians over the prices of food items and condiments, with some now describing tomato as gold and proposing a variety of recipes to prepare soups and dishes with some of the overly priced food items. What in the past were regarded as common items such as yam, plantain, and potato now command excessively high figures, and Nigerians are right to wonder how and why things are the way they are.”
Kyari further stated that imported food commodities will be subjected to a recommended retail price (RRP).
