Reps probe Vaswani brothers over N50bn import waiver

The House of Representatives, on Thursday, queried the N50billion import duty waiver on rice allegedly granted the Stallion Group owned by Vaswani brothers by the Federal Government and commenced moves to recover the amount.To this end, the House has mandated its Committees on Agriculture, Finance, Customs and Commerce to investigate the alleged N50 billion waiver with a view to recovering the lost revenue and make recommendations to the House within two weeks.The House resolution was sequel to a motion moved by Honourable Muhammed Wudil, who decried the Federal Government's waiver granting policy which he said was not in the best interest of the country's economy.He equally regretted that the government had been granting import waiver to many foreign companies registered in Nigeria without due diligence search on such companies.He stressed further that such waivers were frivolous and injurious to the development of the nation's economy, especially the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.Honourable Wudil also expressed concerns that products on which waivers were granted were usually dumped in the country which made it totally impossible for such products to be produced locally at the same price at which they were brought in by the foreign companies.He said,'the granting of import waivers on products such as rice, for instance which, ordinarily, can be produced in Nigeria discourages its production in the country."
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