The Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) says it has generated N6 billion in the last six months as against N8 billion it generated in 2023 amid challenges.
NEPZA’s Managing Director, Dr Olufemi Ogunyemi, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja, during an oversight visit by the House of Representatives Committee on Commerce and Investment, led by its Chairman, Ahmed Munir.
Ogunyemi explained that of the N8 billion generated in 2023, the authority remitted N4 billion to the Federal Government and retained N4 billion in the agency’s coffers.
He also explained that upon his assumption of office, he inherited 52 free trade zones and had given licences to an additional two that have expressed a commitment to invest about three billion dollars in Nigeria.
Speaking on challenges in the agency, he decried conflicts between agencies, such as the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the Nigerian Customs Service, and NEPZA.
He, however, attributed the conflicts to the obsolete NEPZA Act of 1992.
The managing director, while harping on the critical role played in the country industrialisation drive by free trade zones said inadequate infrastructure in the zones had remained a challenge.
According to him, there are lots of security challenges. Some of them, especially the privately owned ones, cannot get financing for infrastructure.
“Lot of states are trying to have zone licences, and some of the zones that have failed have been state governments and private partnerships where the state government has changed from one political party to another and has been neglected.
”You are all aware of the issues at Centenary Park in Abuja,” he said.