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By Merit Ibe
Minister of Trade and Investment, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, has disclosed that the Federal Government may exclude micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) from the re-introduced N10 per litre excise duty for carbonated drinks.
Adebayo stated this at the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria Export Promotion Group Annual General Meeting in Lagos, where he noted that the office of the Ministry of Trade and Investment was open to engage relevant agencies of government in order to eliminate the bottlenecks confronting the productive sector.
Asked why MSMEs were placed on the same footing with multinational firms with regard to taxes and duties, the Minister said his ministry would work to ease the burden on the small- and micro-scale businesses.
“Write to me officially, we will engage the Ministry of Finance and see what kind of intervention we can get for MSMEs. Government policy is always to assist, so, if we see anything that will be a problem for them, we’ll see what we can do to address those problems.”
The promise of intervention by the Minister followed earlier complaints by MSMEs operators, that lamented that the re-introduced excise duty had led to skyrocketing production costs.
The MSMEs operators, who are in the production of carbonated drinks, alleged that it would cost a single operator N4.8million every year to complete the registration process and also comply with other mandatory charges imposed by the Nigeria Customs Service.
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