The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has said that failure of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) to adhere to the Executive Order which forbids customs’ checkpoints around the ports and within given geographical delimitations in the country is a cause for concern.
The President of the chamber, Mrs. Toki Mabogunje who made this disclosure in her welcome remarks at the virtual 2020 Presidential Policy Dialogue session on Friday pointed out that the closure of the land borders had enormous implications for cross border economic activities around the country adding that the indications were now that the closure was indefinite.
Mabogunje observed that while LCCI shared the concern of government on issues of security and smuggling, it believed that the indefinite closure of land borders was not the solution to the problem.
She maintained that investment climate issues and cost of doing business were very critical issues that need to be tackled as the ease of doing business remained a major challenge.
She insisted that the key cost drivers were the high energy cost, depreciating exchange rate, high cost of fund, high transportation cost, high transaction cost at the ports, among others.
“There is a limit to which these costs can be passed on to the consumers, especially in an environment of weak and declining purchasing power”, she said.
While expressing the chamber’s excitement over the signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCTA) agreement by the federal government, she said “But we need to get ourselves ready for the pressure of competition inherent in the continental economic integration agenda.”
She also recalled that a number of commitments were made about the creation of an environment that would enable the private sector to be competition ready regretting that not much had happened in this regard so far.
The President further noted that the slow pace of reforms in the oil and gas sector, especially the fact that the Petroleum Industry Bill could not make it through the eighth National Assembly was a cause for worry as the part that was passed was not signed by the President insisting that this had affected the growth of the sector.
Mabogunje said, “We are aware of the efforts of government to fix our infrastructures, including roads and railways, but funding has remained a major challenge. We would like to see a new funding model with much bigger focus on private sector capital within a Public Private Partnership [PPP] framework for infrastructure development in the country. Am sure in the course of the dialogue, other matters will be raised.
“Your Excellency sir, at a time like this, we should do all that we can to attract private capital, both from the domestic economy and the global investing community. We are aware that there are huge financing gaps, especially in the infrastructure delivery. Challenges of funding, the economy and the operations of government is a major cause for concern.”
Photo: LCCI President, Mrs. Toki Mabogunje.
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