The International Freight Forwarding Association (IFFA) has lampooned the federal government over high rate of vehicle importation into the country, saying that it doesn’t help the economy to grow, even as it added that the act has turned all the streets especially in Lagos into automobile markets.
The Apapa chapter chairman of the association, Mr. Osita Chukwu, who said this in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Apapa last week, also advised that although there is nothing wrong with bringing in damaged vehicles into the country, but such vehicles should be repaired before they are shipped in.
He frowned at the rate at which refurbished vehicles are sold to innocent Nigerians under the guise of buying a fairly used car.
Chukwu, also expressed disappointment at the automobile sector, saying that in terms of vehicle importation, the sector has not really done well.
He argued that, “vehicle importation does not make the economy to grow but rather its bringing the economy down. When you talk of importation of vehicles, you will find out that almost every street in Lagos is car mart and people take advantage of that to bring over-used and damaged vehicles”
Although there is nothing wrong in bringing damaged vehicles, but they should fix it over there and bring it back as a full and well-arranged vehicle not as a damaged vehicle. Or they should bring the parts back so that it can be used to repair the already damaged vehicles here”.
According to him, the automobile industry has not done well this year at all in terms of the importation of vehicles, “naturally when you want to monitor economy you will discover that vehicle importation is of a serious negative impact to the economy. If they want to import they should bring in Complete Knock Downs (CKDs) and put them together instead of selling a refurbished car”, he added.
The Apapa IFFA chair urged the federal government to come out with a clearer statement on what over-aged or under-aged vehicles are, to enable the practitioners understand the ages.
“The only issue is that the government should come out clear and tell us the vehicles that are under-aged and over-aged, they have not been able to make a specific statement on that. They should specify the year so that we will be able to understand that”, he stated.
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