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The Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPS) has urged the National Assembly to withdraw the proposed amendment to the Customs, Excise and Tariff Bill, stating that the current draft of the bill is misaligned with the Federal Government’s fiscal reform direction and contains several legal and administrative gaps.

The OPS comprises the Nige­rian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA); the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN); the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Asso­ciation (NECA); National Asso­ciation of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), and the National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI).

This was contained in the position paper presented by the OPS on Thursday, during the public hearing on the proposed amendment bill, which recently passed its second reading in the National Assembly.

The Organised Private Sector explained that the NAD sector is committed to supporting govern­ment revenue and public health objectives.

However, policies must be holistic, harmonised, and con­text-appropriate, ensuring that they improve health outcomes without undermining jobs, investment, affordability, or in­dustrial stability.

The OPS maintained that Nigeria’s excise framework is increasingly fragmented, as new levies are introduced without co­ordinated assessment of their combined effects on production, investment, backward integra­tion, employment, exports, and inflation, which may result in unintended consequences negat­ing President Tinubu’s adminis­tration’s key economic reforms without delivering measurable public health gains.

It argued that a steep excise increase or introduction of a levy would impose substantial eco­nomic costs on businesses and consumers without delivering measurable public health gains.

The group stated that the pro­posed excise amendment intro­duces mathematical, legal, and administrative contradictions, worsens Nigeria’s already frag­mented fiscal environment, and directly conflicts with national industrialisation priorities, in­cluding the Nigeria Sugar Mas­ter Plan.

OPS also warned that the amendment could weaken the beverage value chain, one of the country’s most significant con­tributors to non-oil revenue and a major employer.

Industry experts added that the levy would push up operat­ing costs, reduce capacity utilisa­tion, and raise consumer prices at a time when households and small businesses are already under pressure, with many slip­ping deeper into poverty. This, in turn, could reduce VAT and CIT collections, placing additional strain on medium-term FAAC revenues.