A logistics expert and the National President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF); Chief Increase Uche, has accused the federal government of not facilitating trade through the ban on vehicle importation through land borders.
Chief Uche who said this recently in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos, also maintained that although the ban has increased activities in the seaports, it has also infringed on the rights of importers to make use of any port of their choice.
He also said that the ban has not only created more jobs for freight forwarders in the industry, it has also increased the revenue generated from these seaports.
“Yes the ban has increased activities in the ports to some extent it has created jobs to some of our members who operate at the sea ports. It is a new development but the restrictions again is not the best for the trading public because the restriction of cargos movement through a particular ports does not encourage trade facilitation because it now causes a merchant to use ports that is not of his choice. It has improved ports activities and operations and also increased revenue generation. From indices I think there is an increase in the number of vehicles cleared out of the ports in 2017 thought there was a drop a year before 2016. I think 2017 was better than 2016 in terms of vehicles coming in through the land borders all because of the restrictions carried out at the border stations”, he said.
Speaking on the uniformity of the valuation of vehicles, he maintained that setting up a committee on that by the Nigeria Customs Service, show laxity on the side of the service, he added that valuation of vehicles is already enshrined in the World Trade Organization (WTO) procedure on the valuation.
He maintained that valuation of vehicles should come through the application of the standard valuation method adding that it shouldn’t come through harmonization.
“On the uniformity of duties still see that committee between the customs and ANLCA as the undoing of the customs. The standard practice in cargo valuation is already enshrined in the WTO procedure on the valuation method. So bringing harmonization or uniformity in any form means that it is possible that our customs seem not to have keyed into the global best practices because if they had keyed into the global best practice, uniformity on vehicles valuation will come through the application of the standard valuation method. So it shouldn’t come through harmonization of any process so”
“Where we want them to bring about uniformity is in the standard practice as global best practice, to apply global best practice whereby transaction valuation method should be applied where that didn’t work the next method as given by WTO should be followed. Transaction of similar goods they should apply those approaches and get what is required”, he concluded.
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