The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) said that the Federal Ministry of Finance granted a waiver of N10.1 million to Coscharis Motors for the purchase of the two BMW cars by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
The NCS told the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation investigating the alleged importation of the cars by the NCAA for the Minister of Aviation Ms Stella Oduah that the said waiver was to import 300 vehicles, including the controversial two BMW cars.
Representative of the Comptroller-General of the NCS, Mr Manasseh Jatau, a Deputy Comptroller of Customs, disclosed this in his presentation at the public hearing of the case on Wednesday in Abuja. He said the point of entry of the cars was Tincan Port in Lagos, adding that no import duty was collected from the owner of the goods (Coscharis Motors) as a one-year duty waiver for 300 cars was granted in the name of the company for importation of cars for Eko 2012 Games in Lagos.
Jatau said the exemption on the two BMW cars along with 298 others was at the expense of the Lagos State Government, who would have been the beneficiaries of the payment.
Documents presented to the committee by the NCS showed that the Import Duty, VAT, ETLS, CISS and Port Charges Waiver Certificate was issued by the Ministry of Finance on November 20, 2012.
The document was signed by the Director of Revenue, Mrs Rose Ngozi-Maranzu, on behalf of the finance minister. Jatau also disclosed that it contrary to earlier reports the Office of the National Security Adviser duly issued an approval for the purchase of the armoured cars. He said a signed copy of a pre-shipment inspection end-user certificate issued by the NSA on June 6, 2013, showed that due approval was gotten from the office for Coscharis Motors to import three armoured cars valued at 223,653.48 dollars into Nigeria for commercial purposes.
The document, identified as “Form A
