The President, Shippers’ Association Lagos State (SALS), Rev. Dr. Jonathan Nicol has called on the Federal Government through the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to ensure strict adherence to the figures approved in opening Form M for customs duty calculation or scrap it.
Nicol who made this call in a chat with Primetime Reporters in Lagos Tuesday stated that a situation where the NCS would wake up one morning and re-adjust the foreign exchange rate for import duty calculation as was the case in the recent upward review of foreign exchange rate by the NCS leaves much to be desired.
According to him,” In those days, when you raise the Form M, it is the amount that was in the form M that you will use in customs duty payment and that is what we think it should be. We can now see government competing with business men. So, what business is government doing in the ports competing with businessmen? And why should we be in a hurry? And why giving the Nigeria Customs Service target when they know that they don’t have the cargo?
“As we speak now, we believe that 76% of our cargo is no more with us, which means that the vessels that will come to our ports will be reduced, NPA will not make money, it will affect NIMASA, it will affect the shipping companies, it will affect the terminal operators. That is what is happening now as we speak and our customs service will come out and say they will use the current exchange rate, no! Since most of the consignments have form M, they should use the figure on form M and it makes it more decent on the part of government so that we are not beginning the change with the maritime sector.
“so, when you have a document called Form M, you have already an amount approved by government, let me tell you something, by using the current exchange rate, you jerk up the cost of clearing, during the time of transferring money, the government pay more in foreign exchange because it is the volume of Naira that you used that will affect the exchange rate.
“If you have an exchange rate of N282 for instance, and you now jerk it up to N313, the importer will get more foreign exchange at the time of transfer. Instead of N282, they will be transferring in foreign currency N313, so, the government is losing”.
The SALS boss maintained that the association expected that the Economic Advisers from the Ministry of Finance to advice the government adding that the less people pay, the more money government would make as government as that was the way it should be.
“You don’t have to be much in a hurry to say you want to make N1 trillion. What do you want to do with the N1 trillion? The cargoes are not there as a result of government policies, it is all their fault, if they reverse the policy, they can even make N3 trillion in Lagos alone not to talk of Port-Harcourt. If you go to advanced ports, they don’t joggle figures like this, this is bank transaction approved by the apex bank of the country and suddenly you are changing figures on the document, which makes the document ridiculous. The Form M is useless as it is now, so, why asking the importer to open Form M that you know that you will not honour?
“You are pushing us to the wall to go and raise additional currency for something that we have made projections on and when it comes, this country is a very different country. If you set aside maybe N20 million for your import, you will end up paying N30 million but how do you sell the goods? How do you survive? How do you keep your staff?” he queried.
Nicol who is also the Managing Director of Harlem International recalled that government had always given six months’ notice before they make any increment in duty payment wondering why it was in a hurry to implement this current exchange rate without recourse to those that had earlier opened form M with the previous foreign exchange rate of N282.
He warned that if the trend continued like this in the next 2 to 3 year, people would no longer import goods into the country through the nation’s ports adding that it was policies like this that led to importers carefully leaving the Nigerian ports even as he said that the port is almost empty presently.
He therefore said that,” Government should revert to the old system because it will help the government. The figure approved in the Form M should always be used for foreign exchange transaction not for you to come and change that transaction otherwise the Form M should be scrapped from being used”.
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