Barely one year after the federal government banned the importation of vehicles through land borders, the Chattered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) has called for the reopening of the land borders to such importation.
The Acting National Executive, Director of CILT, Mr. Paul Ndibe, who disclosed this in an interview with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos, also maintained that vehicles should be allowed to come, but in an orderly and well-documented manner.
He also urged the federal government to ensure that proper taxes are paid on these vehicles before they are allowed to come in, adding that lifting the ban on land importation of vehicles will help improve trade and logistics services in Africa.
“Well, it depends on the direction the review will go if it will go through proper documentation and inspection of vehicles, it is not bad. But at any rate, if there are no unrestricted borders vehicles should come but in an orderly manner well-documented and all that duties and taxes paid, if the essence is to achieve all that, then it is not out of place’’
‘’What the federal government might do is, if we have borders it will improve trade and logistics services in Africa, so if they start banning importation through the land borders then you will also doing protectionist measures. So my thinking is that for the interest of Africa movement of goods across the border should be reopened. Because vehicles no matter how you look at it is also moving from one place to another. So for the sake of taxes and openness to trade from one country to the other, we should not close our borders”, he argued.
“We should rather set up machinery to ensure that goods coming in are well-documented and inspections made and duties on them paid. But not to close or ban importation through the land borders”.
He also argued that banning importation through the land borders will not increase activities in the ports, saying that there are designated ports for the movement of cargoes and vehicles in Nigeria.
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