IT is really distressing to know that the policy decision of the Federal Government enunciated since July to suspend the payment of customs duty on the importation of some specific food items with a view to ameliorating hunger in the country has yet to be implemented. That is more than two months after the policy pronouncement. The failure to commence the policy of zero duty on food items has dashed the hopes of millions of Nigerians who had anticipated its immediate implementation in July at the height of hunger in the land.
And the hunger has yet to abate. It is even astonishing that the #EndBadGovernance protest in August, which had pervasive hunger as its central grievance, could not sway the government to expedite the implementation of the pro-poor policy. Meanwhile, there were reports that the government policy on zero-duty food importation would translate into the forfeiture of over N188 billion in revenue by the government, but that the forfeiture represented the government’s commitment to prioritising food security over short-term revenue goals.
Sadly, the seeming reassurance turned out to be rather presumptuous. Though not a policy initiative to be relied upon to guarantee food security in the long run, the 150-day duty-free import window for food commodities approved by President Bola Tinubu on July 8 promised to alleviate food inflation in the emergency situation that the country had found itself. It, therefore, beggars belief that government officials do not ap.
