The leadership of the National Union of Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE) has urged the House of Representatives to withhold concurrence on the Customs, Excise Tariffs, Etc. (Consolidation) Amendment Bill, 2025 (CETA Bill), currently before the chamber.

In an open letter addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, which was co-signed by the President, NUFBTE, Garba Dankama, at the weekend, the union warned that passing such legislation at this time would place an additional burden on Nigerian workers and the manufacturing sector, given the impact of ongoing economic reforms on their shoulders.

The 2025 CETA Bill proposes replacing the predictable N10-per-litre specific tax on soft drinks with a percentage levy per litre on the retail price of the products.

Dankama said Nigerian workers cannot survive an additional, poorly designed tax burden, warning that the proposed legislation could turn an already difficult operating environment into a catastrophic one for the sector.

He explained that with the manufacturing sector, and the food, beverage, and tobacco sectors in a state of acute distress, passing the CETA Bill would inflict irreversible damage to an already fragile industrial base and threaten the livelihood of workers who depend on it.

“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.

The Non-Alcoholic Drinks (NAD) sector, which anchors hundreds of thousands of jobs across farming, haulage, distribution, and retail, cannot absorb an additional tax escalation without triggering a wave of further closures, retrenchments, and value chain collapse,” he stated.

Dankama expressed confidence that the leadership of the House of Representatives would protect the interests of Nigerian workers while supporting the manufacturing sector through the current economic difficulties.

According to him, workers have already borne the brunt of the Federal Government’s fuel subsidy removal and foreign exchange reforms and may not be able to shoulder another financial burden. He added that workers’ incomes had not kept pace with the sharp increases in transportation, food, housing, and other essential costs.