…Says Customs will have a lot of auctions to sell soon
Foremost freight forwarder, Ichie Frank Obiekezie has said that these set of jobs that the Nigerian freight forwarders are handling now may be the last they will ever handle following the foreign exchange fluctuations.
Obiekezie who made this assertion in a chat with Primetime Reporters in Lagos on Thursday observed that the freight forwarders were preparing themselves for more hard times as according to him, if the importers cannot see dollar to import or if they import, but cannot make any profit, they may not be encouraged to import again.
“All of us are gearing up. I told the CRFFN Registrar that your coming here and emphasizing POF collection, POF is paid on cargo, so, if the cargo is not there, on what will freight forwarders pay the POF? And now, the government is giving you people revenue target, CRFFN has now become revenue agency. From 25 percent deduction to 40 percent and now 50 percent from whatever you people (CRFFN) collect.
“Sometimes, you wonder what is happening to this government because the Maritime Workers’ Union of Nigeria is making such complain over NPA. The way things are going, I am looking at a situation when we shall come out one day, nothing will be happening and everybody will be watching idly. So, it’s an ill-wind.
“Some people suggested we should go and protest and I told them there are many ways to protest, you may go on the street, you can write to organizations and make it go viral because customs will always have an already made answer, ‘we didn’t do it, it was sent to us’ and that is the truth. The only thing is that one should expect them to communicate with the government, ‘this thing is affecting the revenue you ask us to collect’ because when you said you are increasing customs target to N5 trillion or so, from where did you want them to get that revenue?
“But the surprising thing is that like PTML, the man (Customs Controller) said that he will make so and so billion this year and Tincan (Controller) said his own and we are wondering, is it not this port that we are operating in? From where are they making this money? The money customs will give you is money received from the importers and agents. And importers and agents are giving customs money in form of duty because of the goods in the port.
“So, when you have a space that used to contain one hundred containers and you come today, you have only twenty five and that’s why clearing is becoming more difficult because an average officer there will be looking at target and while he is making this target that the government had set for him, he has also set a target for himself. So, these two targets must be met from that one container or one vehicle at the port.
“Give this system another one year to subsist, it will e devastating, massive unemployment, high cost of goods because over 90 percent of what we consume here are imported either as finished product or as raw material or as spare parts. That’s why once it happens, it spirals. Add it to the fuel subsidy matter and add it to the government’s proposal to stop subsidizing electricity. So, you can imagine what this country will be in the next one year.
Obiekezie who is also the National Secretary of the Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria, AREFFN revealed that some importers had abandoned their cargo at the port as a result of this exchange rate fluctuation even as he said that many more would abandon theirs”, he said..
His words, “Some have been abandoned, more will be abandoned . So, customs will have a lot of auctions to sell in a few months time. These people who are owners of these goods, you have destroyed their business and people don’t look at this Dollar issue in all ramifications. When you see people who are making money before, all of a sudden, you terminate it, what happens? They take to killing and kidnapping and they will be seeing it as vengeance on the government but it is individuals that they are kidnapping and killing.
“Tell me one thing government has done in the interest of a single businessman in Nigeria, at least, to help him. The other time, they said they are removing ban on access to Forex on 41 items and people were clapping. Where is the Forex ? These things, people thought that it meant unbanning them, but they were not banned before.What is our government doing to show sacrifice?
“They are preparing the people to unleash the worst on this system and when it happens, nobody will be spared. They think they are safe in their comfort zones. The other day, they were running Helter skelter in Abuja, that might be a test run of what is about to come.when you keep on pressing the people.”
On what incentive the government should give the importers to cushion the effects of the foreign exchange fluctuations in their business, he said, “The exchange rate for clearing purposes, you know that before you import anything now, there will be Form M and the importer is supposed to be looking at the exchange rate on that Form M for importation, so that exchange rate on your Form M, even if you open it today, doesn’t make sense again and by the time the goods come in one month time, the exchange rate might have tripled. It doesn’t make room for stability.
“So, they have to find a way of pegging exchange rate for importation purposes. This money, you are not even giving them, they source for it in their own just to keep this economy afloat. So, government has to bring people together and brainstorm, let us see how we can do this thing and this country will survive. You can’t just be there dishing out policies without putting in place feedback mechanism to know the impact of those policies on the people and the economy.”
Photo: Ichie Frank Obiekezie, National Secretary, AREFFN.
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