NUFBTE rejects customs’ bill, warns of job losses
The National Union of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employees has urged the House of Representatives to reject the Customs, Excise Tariffs Amendment Bill, 2025, warning that its passage would place additional pressure on workers and the manufacturing sector.
The union said Nigerian workers had already borne the impact of the Federal Government’s fuel subsidy removal and foreign exchange reforms, while rising transportation, food, housing and other essential costs continued to erode their incomes.
In an open letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, signed by the union’s President, Comrade Garba Dankama, NUFBTE said the proposed legislation would worsen the difficult operating environment facing manufacturers.
The 2025 CETA Bill proposes replacing the existing N10-per-litre specific tax on soft drinks with a percentage-based levy tied to the retail price of the products.
Dankama warned that the proposed tax could further weaken production, investment and employment in the sector, which he said was already struggling with high operating costs and declining capacity utilisation.
“Capacity utilisation across manufacturing has declined sharply as producers contend with prohibitively high borrowing costs, rising energy and logistics expenses, persistent constraints in foreign exchange access, and weakened consumer purchasing power. Several production lines have been scaled back or shut down entirely,” Dankama said.
He said the beverage sector supported hundreds of thousands of jobs across farming, haulage, distribution and retail, adding that another tax increase could trigger further factory closures and job losses.
The NUFBTE president said workers could not absorb another financial burden after the economic reforms had already increased the cost of living and reduced their purchasing power.
“The sector needs room to adjust to the current economic realities and remain sustainable. An aggressive percentage-based tax at this time could place a serious strain on the industry, with consequences for investment, jobs, and livelihoods. We should not put further pressure on an industry that provides employment and supports the livelihoods of so many Nigerians,” he said.
Dankama also argued that a percentage-based levy would expose manufacturers to greater cost pressures amid volatility in global commodity prices and geopolitical uncertainty.
He warned that higher production costs would ultimately translate into higher prices, weaker consumer demand and further factory closures.
“Taxing a product category that contributes only 5 per cent of national sugar intake will not yield real public health benefits. It will simply push consumers toward cheaper, unregulated alternatives, while destroying the livelihoods of over a million Nigerians who have already borne the brunt of recent economic reforms,” Dankama added.
The union urged the House leadership to withhold concurrence on the bill and protect workers and manufacturers from what it described as an additional tax burden at a time when the industrial sector was already under severe pressure.
NUFBTE expressed confidence that the House would consider the impact of the proposed legislation on workers, investment and the sustainability of the manufacturing sector before taking a decision.
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