…Seeks more power, roles for PEBEC
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has described the Nigeria Customs Service as one of the biggest institutional challenges facing the business community in Nigeria today.
The President of the Chamber, Mr. Babatunde Paul Ruwase who disclosed this in a press briefing in Lagos today to set agenda for President Muhammadu Buhari in his second term in office said that the Nigeria Customs Service had created a lot of uncertainty and bottlenecks in the international trade process.
In His words, “One of the biggest institutional challenges facing the business community today is the Nigeria Customs Service. The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has also not fully subscribed to the Executive Orders focused on promoting ease of doing business in the country. We therefore advised that NCS should be compelled forthwith to subscribe to ease of doing business policy of government, without necessarily compromising its security surveillance. It should also do more to prioritize its trade facilitation role”.
Ruwase however appreciated the series of Executive Orders focused on promoting ease of doing business in the country saying that these orders were impacting positively on the business environment and promoting an inclusive economy through the scaling up of the local content in government expenditure even as he argued that compliance could be much better.
He said, “The creation of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) played a key role in these achievements. We are of the firm believe that PEBEC is one of the best performing initiatives of the present administration from the business point of view. We request that the PEBEC Secretariat should be further strengthened and the scope of its activities broadened to cover all sectors of the economy and all agencies of government that interface with the private sector. We believe that economy will be positively impacted if it this is done”.
On the Apapa gridlock, the LCCI boss opined that the gridlock in the axis of the Lagos State had imposed and continued to impose unbearable cost on businesses adding that this dis-functional state of the port and associated logistics for cargo clearing have become a nightmare.
“The cost to business is horrendous and this includes high interest cost (borrowed fund) used for import transaction, high demurrage charges, high insurance premium of vessels coming to Nigeria, high shipping cost, low capacity utilization due to problem of access to raw materials from the port as well as traffic congestion which has extended to the metropolis from the port. Paralysis of economic activities in Apapa axis and many more, what we are witnessing today is a reflection of the several years of neglect of our port and other infrastructure”.
“We appreciate some of the steps being taken by the government; we like to however reiterate that this measure needs to be decisive, consistent and sustainable. We need to restore orders and sanity to the Lagos port and access to the port. It is regrettable that Lagos port which account for 70 percent of Nigeria Customs’ revenue have to suffer the kind of deterioration and challenges that it is currently exposed to.
“We also plead that urgent measures be taken to restore the use of rail for the evacuation of cargo from the Lagos ports. It is worthy of note that containers are now being evacuated by the Nigerian Railway Corporation but the process has been reduced to two or three trips per day, with a maximum of 80 containers. This process is being constrained by the bureaucracy at the ports. We believe that the NRC can do more of the port processes are streamlined”, he noted.
He however suggested that pipelines should be used to transport petroleum products from the ports to the depots around the country.
Photo: Vice President, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mr. Gabriel Idahosa; Director General, LCCI, Mr. Muda Yusuf; President, LCCI, Mr. Babatunde Ruwase and Deputy President, LCCI, Mrs. Toki Mabogunje during a Press Briefing to set Agenda for the President-Elect of Nigeria and the Government on Tuesday in Lagos.
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