The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has called on the Federal Government to take far reaching decisions that would ensure that Nigeria’s economy recovers fast from the current economic recession that is biting hard on its citizenry.
The National Publicity Secretary of ANLCA, Dr. Kayode Farinto who made this call in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos Wednesday said this government could do by reversing the levy on rice as well as reviewing the auto policy which he said had scare aware importers from the nation’s seaports.
Farinto called for the abrogation of the protectionist policies that government put in place to protect the local producers of rice and manufacturers of vehicles who he said had not done much to solve the envisaged problems for the masses of this country rather than adding to the problem at hand.
He lamented that the government of Benin Republic and that of Ghana had been progressing faster at the expense of the country owing to the protectionist policies of the government that is plunging the nation’s economy deep into the mud by the day.
According to him,” Then you come to the maritime industry, there are far reaching decisions that government should take. There are some policies; you know that there is what us called protectionist policies that is not helping government. In the last two years, we have levied rice 60% and the issue is that the locally produced rice is not reachable, is it affordable to the citizens of this country? A plate of Ofada rice is sold for N1, 500 whereas with N200 you can buy the foreign rice.
“So, we have over protected the so-called local producers of rice and they are not giving us any solution. So, the government should start thinking of how to solve this problem. In last 7 or 8 months, we have never had a vessel of rice in our ports but rice still found its way into Nigeria. Go to Cotonou, it is 10%, the moment you take your vessel to Cotonou, initially, they were bringing it in through the land borders, pay their duty the borders and bring them in but now that government has stopped rice importation through the land borders, they continue to smuggle it in.
Are you telling me that we don’t have rice? Are they not still coming in? if you want to know how they come in, let me take you at nights and see the way they drive it in to the country. So, nobody should fool us, it is the masses that are suffering. There are certain decisions that our government should take and before you know it, it will kick start our economy”.
The NPS stated that the auto policy needed to be reviewed since it was not helping the nation’s economy saying,” the so-called auto policy where they promised to be assembling some vehicles in Nigeria, I want to ask them three questions, how many vehicles have they assembled since last one year that they started this policy? If there are some vehicles already assembled in Nigeria, are they accessible to Nigerians? Is it affordable to the masses?
“We were told that the intention of this auto policy was that in the next five years we will be able to assemble vehicles here which should be reachable and affordable to Nigerians. It is not, what we are seeing is an auto policy that is favouring just less than 0.05% of Nigerians who are the cabals that have hijacked this government. So, government needs to review that because Cotonou is doing well to the detriment of our economy. Ghana is doing well to the detriment of our economy”.
He observed that while one would pay up to N15 million in duty for importing a 2013 model of Prado at 70% in Nigerian ports as provided for in the auto policy, another would pay only about N2 million for the same vehicle cleared at Cotonou port at the border and legitimately drive into the country.
“So, an average importer wants to maximize his profit. First, government is taking a wrong decision at any point in time and that is why the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is deceiving Nigerians. They should be dissolved because they don’t know what they are doing in the first place”, he said.
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