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Nigerian govt planning to slam excise duties on carbonated beverages

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Nigerian govt planning to slam excise duties on carbonated beverages

Consumers might have to pay more for their favourite soft drinks as the Federal Government is considering adding excise duties on carbonated drinks.

This, is according the minister for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed who spoke on the sidelines of the ongoing World Bank/IMF Annual Meeting in Washington DC, United States on Thursday.

Ahmed said the move was one of several that the government was considering to broaden its revenue base. She explained that the government is working hard to ensure efficiency in the existing revenue stream while searching for new ones.

She also said her ministry is working with all agencies to ensure full collaboration to strengthen revenue generation. The minister said the government will sanction any revenue-generating agency that fails to meet their targets.

“Efforts are ongoing to improve the monitoring performance of the revenue-generating agencies, especially government-owned enterprises.

“We have now in place a rigorous monthly reconciliation of revenues and that is ensuring that the leakages are minimised.

“There is several cost-cutting measures in the SRGI and a number of cost-cutting measures initiatives such as innovation and automation as well as capacity building of our people.

Read also: FG, states, LGs share N694.5bn for September

“Mr President has said that targets will be set for ministers as well as heads of agencies and that when targets are met there will be recommendations and when there are not met there will be consequences.

“So, what was missing in the past was that there were no consequences, so if an agency underperformed, there are no consequences for doing do.

“But now there will be consequences and we will be pushing to make sure that we provide all the support that the agencies will require to enable them to perform,” she said.

If excise duties are placed on carbonated drinks, it will mostly affect consumers of Coca Cola, Fanta, Big Cola, Bigi Cola, and Bigi Apple amongst others.

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