World Bank: FG Yet to Implement Tax on Sugar-sweetened Beverages

•Tinubu to earmark 10% appropriation to health, says aide

James Emejo and Aisha Kabiru in Abuja

It emerged yesterday that the federal government was yet to commence implementation of the N10 per liter excise tax imposed on all non-alcoholic, carbonated and sweetened beverages in the 2021 Finance Act.

This was disclosed by the World Bank Health Specialist, Dr. Olumide Okunola, who said the taxation of the Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (SSB) had been deferred till September.

This came as the Special Adviser to the President on Health, Dr. Salma Ibrahim Anas, said the Tinubu administration had committed to allocate 10 per cent of the annual budget to health financing from the current five per cent.

Both spoke at the Gatefield Health Summit in Abuja, where stakeholders had converged to discuss the need for the federal government to commit the taxes generated from the tax to investment in the health sector as well as raise the rate to 20 per cent.

However, participants were shocked to learn that the implementation had not even started let alone determine its utilization.

Ironically, on June 28, 2022, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) during a policy breakfast meeting on the SSB, confirmed to stakeholders that implementation and enforcement of the tax actually commenced since June 1, last year.

The meeting was attended by high-level officials and representatives from the Federal Ministry of Health, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, National Assembly, Nigeria Customs Service, World Bank and a coalition under the National Action on Sugar Reduction (NASR).

Chief Superintendent of Customs (CSC), Dennis Ituma and CSC, Opeyemi Itulua, confirmed that enforcement of the regulation had commenced in earnest, pointing out that companies are expected to start remitting the first set of appropriate taxes to the government on/or before July 21.

Ituma, also said the customs had been meeting with the finance ministry over the sugar tax adding that the former had gone far with its implementation, adding that the law required companies to remit the taxes from carbonated drinks on a monthly basis as the revenues would then be transferred into the federation account.

However, the disclosure by the World Bank specialist that the implementation had further been deferred by President Bola Tinubu has already rattled the summit, hosted by the bank and NASR, a coalition which canvassed the inclusion of the SSB in the Finance Act.

Also, there were fears that the postponement of its implementation could eventually lead to its cancellation if steps were not taken to monitor its trajectory.

Health experts believed that the SSB was crucial towards treatment of obesity and diabetes which millions of Nigerians are currently suffering from as a direct outcome of their unregulated consumption of sugary drinks, leading to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) responsible for 29 per cent of deaths in Nigeria in 2018.

They argued that treatment of these diseases was quite expensive to be left to patients alone. The tax would also help to provide infrastructure in the health sector among other things.

Anas, nonetheless, said health financing remained a critical part of Tinubu’s health policy as well as increasing local production of health equipment.