The federal government has raised the alarm over continuous sabotage of its economic policies by local business conglomerate, BUA group.
The regulatory body charged by the federal government to see to the transformation of the sugar industry in the country from one dependent on massive importation to an integrated producer of the essential commodity, the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), which made the claim, said some companies especially BUA had flouted the terms and conditions for obtaining a three-year low tariffs for sugar importation into the country.
The Executive Secretary of the council, Dr. Abdullatif Demola Busari, said in January 2013, that the federal government approved concessionary low tariffs of 5 per cent duty and 5 per cent levy for raw sugar imports for three companies including the BUA Group as against the 5 per cent duty and 70 per cent levy contained in the National Sugar Policy. The Executive Secretary said though the high tariffs for refined sugar import into the country was deliberately designed to discourage importation and encourage local production of sugar, the concession became necessary in order not to hike the local price of the commodity since the country has not achieved self-sufficiency in sugar production yet. He noted Nigeria still depended on sugar importation to meet 90 per cent of local consumption, which led to the plea by stakeholders that if sugar is to be imported at that high tariff, the cost of sugar will be prohibitive.
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