The Nigerian Senate said it has begun an investigation into allegations that Samsung and some foreign companies are bringing finished products into the country in the guise of Complete Knocked Down (CKD).
The chairman of the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff, Mr. Hope Uzodinma, revealed this in Abuja on Thursday.
He said: “foreigners are here, pretending to be manufacturing different products in Nigeria, pretending to be importing raw materials or Complete Knocked Down (CKD) but in the real sense, they have no assembly plant.
“You can see how a globally-acclaimed company like Samsung is importing into the country and pretending to be manufacturing or assembling their products in Nigeria.
“Meanwhile, it has been confirmed now that they have no assembly plant in Nigeria.
“We visited the site, we saw no assembly plant. Samsung has confirmed that Somotex is one of their distributors whom they supply finished products.
“The question is if they supply finished products to Somotex and Somotex is their distributor, how come Somotex is importing CKD and claims to be assembling it in Nigeria.
“Apart from the lousy nature of customs duty collections by the authorized banks and their non-remittances and partial remittances, where revenues have been recovered, we have gone into the abuse of fiscal policies.
“Government incentives are being abused by non-manufacturers, and fiscal policies that supposed to assist people to import raw materials are being abused; free trade zones have become points of smuggling.
These are the areas we have identified and we have raised alarm so that it can be corrected.
“We have adopted a segmented approach of all discoveries sector-by-sector, under several subheads; different types of infractions ranging from falsification of Form M and tripping of foreign exchange were noted.
“Abuse of fiscal policy, abandonment of Customs duly accessed fees and levies, these are different sub-heads that are being addressed.”