The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has advised that more enlightenment of the importers on the disadvantages of smuggling will go a long way in addressing the issue of smuggling of vehicles into Nigeria.
The National President of the association, Chief Increase Uche, gave this advice last week in an interview with Shipping Position Daily, in Apapa, Lagos.
He also reiterated that smuggling doesn’t help the economy adding that the government needs to bring out policies that will bring the practitioners whose role is to bring importers together.
Uche added that when they are enlightened and they understand the disadvantages of smuggling they will desist from that.
“Smuggling doesn’t do good to any economy and if the government wants to eradicate or reduce it to certain level, what we need to do now is to start enlightening those whose role is to link up shippers. Vehicle smuggling is where the thing is prevalent especially at border stations, if you now enlighten people on the consequences and the implications or the disadvantages or what it portends to the economy, they will be able to avoid going into that”, he noted.
The NAGAFF boss called on the government to make policies that are favourable to importers in order to encourage them to desist from smuggling, adding that draconian policies will only scare them away from doing legitimate businesses.
“But if government policies are draconian policies that are made to the extent that even when one decides to do the right thing to avoid smuggling and unfortunately government will come up with a kind of policy that will tend to frustrate or stiffen the procedure without bringing a conducive environment or predictable atmosphere. Because some of these smugglers are people who are frustrated because at a stage somebody may intend to do the right thing but at the cause of completing the international transaction that he had started, a certain policy will come up that will force you to look for a way of trying to secure that your cargo”.
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