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, warning that the proposed tax could increase pressure on workers and threaten jobs in the manufacturing sector.
The union made the call in an open letter to Abbas Tajudeen, Speaker of the House of Representatives, co-signed by Garba Dankama, NUFBTE president. The bill, also known as the CETA Bill, proposes replacing the current specific ₦10-per-litre tax on soft drinks with a percentage-based levy determined by the retail price of the products.
Dankama said Nigerian workers could not afford another poorly designed tax burden amid the rising cost of living and difficult operating conditions facing manufacturers.
He said the food, beverage and tobacco sectors were already in “acute distress”, adding that another tax increase could further weaken an already fragile industrial base and put workers’ livelihoods at risk.
“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,” he said.
“Several production lines have been scaled back or shut down entirely. The 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.”
The NUFBTE president said workers had already borne the impact of the federal government’s fuel subsidy removal and foreign exchange reforms.
According to him, workers’ incomes had failed to keep pace with sharp increases in transportation, food, housing and other essential expenses.
He urged the House leadership to protect workers while supporting the manufacturing sector to navigate the current economic difficulties.
“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,” Dankama said.
“We should not put further pressure on an industry that provides employment and supports the livelihoods of so many Nigerians.”
Dankama also warned that a percentage-based levy could increase production costs at a time when manufacturers were already exposed to global commodity price fluctuations and geopolitical uncertainty.
He said higher costs could translate into increased product prices, weaker consumer demand and further factory closures.
The union president also questioned the public health justification for increasing taxes on soft drinks, arguing that the products account for only about 5 per cent of national sugar intake.
“Taxing a product category that contributes only 5% 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,” he said.
NUFBTE called on the House of Representatives to withhold concurrence on the bill and give the manufacturing sector more room to recover from the economic pressures affecting production, investment and employment.
