The Nigeria Customs Service has been advised by imported fairly used automobile dealers to put in place mechanism that will address issues surrounding smuggling of imported fairly used vehicles from neighbouring ports to Nigeria.
A cross section of the operators who spoke with Auto Port Weekly, last week expressed dissatisfaction with the nature of the porous borders in the country where such vehicles find their ways in.
They also affirmed that a database of all vehicles coming into Nigeria through the various land border posts will create an avenue to monitor vehicles that are duly cleared.
According to them, reduction of duty on such vehicles is the fastest means by which smuggling of used vehicles can be discouraged.
Speaking on ways to discourage smuggling of vehicles into Nigeria by customs, foremost car dealer; Mr. Nnamdi Onwuamaegbu, said that the best way for customs to address smuggling of vehicles into Nigeria is to reduce duty.
He also urged customs to put in place measures on how to detect fake duty payable on imported vehicles.
Onwuamaegbu stated that government has lost trillions of naira due the large number of vehicles that enter the country through unapproved routes.
He advised that there is need for customs to work with other agencies of government like Federal Road Safety Corps in order to monitor vehicles without the appropriate duty payment.
Also, another rdealer; Stephen Uzonuoma maintained that government’s unfriendly policies on such imports have led to the illicit act of duty evasion.
The Ikeja, Lagos- based car dealer added that, "smugglers of vehicles have taken advantages of unmanned routes to ferret cars across the border”.
He also suggested the need to cross check from dealers on how the vehicles are imported, saying that it will help identify smuggled vehicles.
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