Finance Minister Justifies FG’s Decision To Halt Export Expansion Grant

The minister, who hosted officials of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) in her office in Abuja, said the Federal Government decided to halt the policy in bid to check abuse of the export grant (EG).

Adeosun urged the NESG to support the ongoing policy review by the current government while charging them to come up with robust policies that are applicable to Nigeria’s current economic situation.

She said that the Ministry of Finance is ready to work hand in hand with the private sector to ensure that all its implementable recommendations to the Federal Government are realised.

Adeosun said, “I want to challenge you by asking you to keep track of how many of your polices are implemented and those not implemented. You also need to find out why those policies were not implemented. They may be great policies at wrong times, or they may be wrong policies. They may even be un-implementable policies.

“I’m giving you the commitment of the Federal Ministry of Finance to assist you. You are invited to the Federal Ministry of Finance and spend a day and sit with our people and see how government affairs are being run.

“Yes, the economy is challenged and people are extremely frustrated and we need to rebuild fundamentally, we need to prioritise. We have to rebuild this country and it has to be data driven.

“We are already overhauling our tax policy. We want to have a realistic picture of tax. We need to realize that with the collapse of commodity prices we don’t have enough foreign exchange to buy as many imported goods as we like to, so when there is import substitution, we must embrace it.”

When asked by NESG on the current status of Export Grant, Adeosun said, “On paper, why will you cancel Export Grant? The EG is set up to encourage export business.

“We do need to look for how to support export, but we have to be very realistic in the recommendations we are coming up with,” she added.