Importer highlights challenges of vehicles importation to Nigeria

The process of importing vehicles to Nigeria from Europe, America and Asia has a lot of challenges that cannot be over emphasized, so says an importer; Alhaji Ahmed Mamudu who also gave an insight of some of the difficulties encountered.
Alhaji Mamudu told Shipping Position Daily recently that the major challenges involved is that most of the vehicles from overseas do not have insurance cover, which makes that business to be unsafe and a very risky for the importer.

The process of importing vehicles to Nigeria from Europe, America and Asia has a lot of challenges that cannot be over emphasized, so says an importer; Alhaji Ahmed Mamudu who also gave an insight of some of the difficulties encountered.
Alhaji Mamudu told Shipping Position Daily recently that the major challenges involved is that most of the vehicles from overseas do not have insurance cover, which makes that business to be unsafe and a very risky for the importer.
Mamudu revealed that any containers with three or four vehicles loaded  in it are not insurable by financial institutions, pointing out the fact that for a 20- foot container loaded with vehicle to be insured, all the four tyres must touch the floor of the container and this has discouraged Nigerian importers from insuring their vehicles.
‘’Any container that involves three, four or five vehicles in it means that insurance company is not involved in it and it is  a very big risk when it comes to business, because  anything can happen to that cargo at anytime”, he noted.
According to him, ‘’because there is no insurance on the cargo in transit, the importer bears the risk of the commodity from the port of origin to the port destination.
He also disclosed that the issue of vandalism at the port of destination which is Nigeria is another problem that the importer faces at the port before clearing the vehicles out of the port.
Mamudu said that no container or vehicle at the port is completely secured as they are all vulnerable to vandals, adding that smart pilferers know what they can tamper with in a vehicle and these are the items that can affect an individual as it create unnecessary delay before the vehicle can be displayed for sale.
‘’In a situation where a vehicle has been tampered with in the port will create unnecessary delay before it will be sold because when accessories like  brain boxes ,stereo ,side mirrors and other things that make a car functional and beautiful have been stolen, it will lead to delay before it could be marketed ‘he added.
He noted that when the importer spends money to replace the stolen items, it will lead to some setback which is also part the challenges.
He called on relevant authority to look into these areas, adding that they affect the life of the average importer.