The Automobile Manufacturers and Importers Association in Nnewi, Anambra State, is concerned about the continuous increase in customs duties by the Federal Government.
The president of the association, Austin Jideofor, expressed his disappointment with the government’s directive to customs to raise duties every month, which is causing hardship for consumers.
Jideofor emphasized that the rising customs duties are negatively impacting the Nigerian people, leading to higher prices for goods like rice, cement, building materials, spare parts, and generators.
He also revealed that container duties were increased twice in January alone, with a percentage increase of over 30%.
The president of the association stated that the increase in customs duties is due to the government using the exchange rate to calculate duty payments.
This has resulted in an increase from N4 million to over N6 million and almost N9 million as of the interview.
The president criticized the complicated clearance process, which involves multiple agencies and checkpoints, and ultimately passes the costs onto consumers.
Jideofor called for a stop to the continuous increase in import duties, highlighting that the current system is corrupt.
He appealed to President Bola Tinubu to address the excessive increase in container duties, stating that the prices of goods should not be solely determined by the rise in the value of the dollar.
The association president urged regulators to adopt a more transparent and predictable approach to setting import duties in order to alleviate the difficulties faced by the Nigerian population.
“As soon as Mr. President orders a halt to the increase in import duties, hardship will drop.
“Regulators are looking at the exchange rate. Nigeria is the owner of the wharf. Before now, some people were going to Cotonuo to clear their goods. We are jubilating that our refineries will soon start functioning so that the prices of petroleum products will go down.
“But the same thing will continue to happen, if the regulators look at the price of dollars to fix the prices of petroleum products.
“I travelled to Iran not long ago, and a friend of mine, a citizen of that country told me he was entitled to 50 litres of fuel every day because they are owners of the oil, what about Nigeria? Nigeria owns oil, and they should follow the Iran example,” he said.
