23rd September, 2016
The President, Shippers Association Lagos State, Mr Jonathan Nicol, said the Federal Government had lost about N800 billion to the auto policy on imported vehicles.
Nicol disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos.
NAN reports that the 70 percent tariff and levy on imported vehicles which took effect in 2015, had reduced vehicle imports by more than 50 percent.
He said that other ports outside Nigeria in Benin, Togo and Ghana now accepted the vehicles and developing their economies with proceeds from the imports.
According to him, with the auto policy, government will be creating more rooms for smuggling.
The shipper said that in other countries, shippers were revered as economic developers.
Nicol suggested that government should remove the lid on importation of essential domestic goods which local industries could not produce.
“The maritime sector should have acted as a cushion in alleviating the present economic recession and also supply the government enough revenue outside oil and gas.
“The recession we are going through is man-made and can be corrected.
“The ports access roads also need to be reconstructed as a priority.
“Government should reverse foreign exchange policy on trade. Imports and exports which constituted trade go together,” NAN quotes the shipper as saying.
Nicol, however, said that the major problem was that most maritime administrators with their personnel had little or no knowledge of maritime administration.
He said that this was why it had been difficult for some of the administrators to defend some government’s maritime policies that were not working well.