Customs and Excise (Suspension) (Amendment) Regulations, 2024 No.275)

The Minister of Finance has repealed and replaced section 9(T) of the Customs and Excise (Suspension) Regulations, 2003 (S.I. 257 of 2003), the provision that suspends duty on fertiliser imports. The new section runs for twelve months from the date of publication — the instrument was gazetted on 8 November 2024.

The suspension is not open to all importers. It applies only to an 'approved fertiliser importer': one approved and licensed by the Ministry responsible for Agriculture, in consultation with the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the fertiliser manufacturing industry, and only up to the tonnage in the Schedule. The Minister of Agriculture must approve a list of reputable importers. The Commissioner may not grant the suspension to an importer without that Agriculture licence, and grants it subject to compliance with section 34C of the Revenue Authority Act [Chapter 23:11] (tax clearance).

There is a pricing condition with teeth. The Ministry of Agriculture must ensure approved importers price duty-free fertiliser responsibly, and any approved importer who sells it at prices equal to or higher than duty-paid fertiliser becomes liable to pay the suspended duty plus applicable penalties.

The Schedule sets the 2024/25 season quantities: 100 000 tonnes covering urea (including in aqueous solution) and urea/ammonium nitrate mixtures, commodity codes 3102.10.00 and 3102.80.00; and 150 000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, code 3102.30.00. Beyond those figures, approved importers may still exhaust the ring-fenced allocations already granted under S.I. 166 of 2023.

One drafting slip is visible in the published Schedule: the quantity column is headed 'Ring-fenced commercial tyres for twenty four months', evidently carried over from a different suspension instrument. The fertiliser tonnages themselves are clear.