30th August, 2016
The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) on Tuesday said that the constant upward review of duty on imported goods was making business unpredictable for them.
Mr. Stanley Ezenga, the National Publicity Secretary of the association, in Lagos, said that the practice was adversely affecting the freight forwarders.
He urged the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to discontinue the practice of constantly reviewing the duty on imported goods to ensure stability.
“We at NAGAFF understand that import duty is now based on the dictates of the flexible exchange rate system after the Customs dumped the N197 exchange rate system sometime ago.
“But, on Tuesday, what we are saying is that if we continue to hike duty based on the fluctuating exchange rate of the naira to U.S. dollars, then we will be ensuring some unpredictability in importation and the business of freight forwarding.
“And that means if we get a job and charge an importer based on a particular duty and the duty is hiked by the time we finish the business, then we have to bear the increase.
“That is not good for our business .You cannot begin to change the contractual agreement with the importer or tell him to bring some more money because duty has been hiked.
“We think what the customs should do is to come up with something very definite and realistic so that people would not need to worry about this constant fluctuation in duty,” he said.
The association’s spokesman also urged the Federal Government to ease forex restriction on some 41 imported items, saying the step would help boost importation activities at the various ports.