A frontline car dealer and the Managing Director of Auto Dome Nigeria Limited, Mrs. Adefunke Anurukem, has fingered inadequate manpower and limited funding as one of the major challenges posing a big threat to the sector.
Anurukem who said this last week in a chat with newsmen in Lagos explained that, unlike other business that can survive very well when some amount of money is injected into it, the auto industry needs a huge amount of money to survive.
She however reiterated that the high import duty paid on imported vehicles has also taken a lot of auto dealers out of the business.
“If for example, you inject N10milllion in a clothing line, automatically you have done massive support to that business line; but here where we are, N10m can only give you two fairly used cars, so we need financing from the government to keep moving”
Anurukem, maintained that indiscriminate raiding of auto marts by officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is another big challenge the sector is facing, which according to her is not healthy for the growth of the sector.
“The high rate of import duty and impounding of vehicles by the customs without checking if the customs duty of that car have been duly paid, is another challenge. Before, we are battling with 5% VAT and now there is increase to 7.5% value added tax and all these are to our own detriment”
The Auto Dome boss decried the high rate of un-cleared vehicles at the ports due to delays in cargo processes.
“Another challenge steering us at the face is the port delay, as I speak with you here now, we have un-cleared goods at the port for weeks, and up till now nothing has been done which is making buying power to reduce. All this is to tell you that the ease of doing business in our ports is still word of the mouth, otherwise not effective even as it is a presidential order” he concluded.
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