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Air freight operations face threat

By on January 5, 2016

The Chairman of National Association of Government Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Murtala Muhammed Airport Ikeja, Segun Musa, has warned that if the Nigerian Customs Service continues to charge exorbitant tariff on imports, air freighting business will collapse before end of the year.
Musa attributed the problem to unfavourable government policies being implemented by customs, which is driving away imports, stating that air freighting had become unprofitable due to these inimical policies, adding that freight forwarders are considering discontinuing with the business.

Musa alleged that customs officials had used these policies to force many importers out of business in Nigeria while others have relocated from the country in the last few months to a more favourable business climate in the West African sub-region.
According to him, officials of the customs have mismanaged both air and sea ports across the country, alleging that the revenue leakages that accrue to them are more than the revenues collected into the coffers of the government.

The NAGAFF chairman said high import tariff by customs was not favourable to importers and has led to poor relationship between importers and the customs.
“Customs officers mismanaged the ports, they have not brought to table any meaningful policy that will actually drive the industry. Because they are saddled with the responsibility of checking revenue being collected by the freight forwarders, they actually mismanaged the ports.
“The revenue leakage is more than the revenue collected in Nigeria, the tariff on imports are so high and that has taken a lot of business out Nigeria.

“We have criticised the President Arrival Report that government should not saddle the customs with issuance of that certificate but the customs came with all kinds of snow whiting discuss that they won’t be any query again when they start issuing the certificate”, Musa said.
Musa therefore called on the federal government to engage private sector in policy formulations in order to get things right, stressing that importation was not responsible for the demise of some major industries in the country but as a result of bad roads, insecurity and poor power generation.
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He explained that they would soon go into a regime of external tariff where every importer is at liberty to import goods and pay tariff anywhere in the world and go to the borders to clear their goods without paying to customs.
“By the time importers start going to Ghana, Togo, Abidjan and Cotonou to pay duties, there will be loss of revenue here and our terminals will be turned into football field where there will be no activities going on in the shed. So, you can imagine how the labour market will look like when about three million people will be thrown out of the market,” he said.

He noted that Nigeria has the highest number of contraband goods all over the world, adding that it was not in the interest of the nation.
When THISDAY contacted customs spokesperson at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, Mrs. Thelma Williams, she said she was not in the position to comment on the issue.

 

[ThisDay]