The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has expressed concern over the N9 million per truck transit duty imposed by the Benin Republic Customs for vehicles originating from Nigeria.
Dr. Muda Yusuf, Chief Executive Officer, CPPE, expressed the concern at the groups October Business Environment Update report made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lagos.
NAN reports that the monthly update is an assessment of key investment climate variables impacting on business performance.
These factors include the macroeconomic dynamics, regulatory concerns, institutional challenges, and structural issues.
Yusuf, also former Director-General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), said that the development posed challenge to companies exporting or importing goods.
He said the development was also in total disregard to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) protocol on trade and movement within the sub region.
“This development, according to our survey with some multinationals, is taking a huge toll on Nigerian businesses involved in cross border trade within the sub region.
“Investors would like to see a more effective intervention by the Nigerian government to put an end to this punitive and obstructionist action by the government of Benin Republic,” he said.
Yusuf said the country’s challenge on cargo clearing persisted in the month of October while importers continued to face some constraints or obstacles.
He said that long and laborious documentation processes, involvement of too many government agencies and intractable traffic gridlock also affected efficient ports operations.
“Some importers had to resort to the use of badges to move cargo outside the Lagos ports.
“There are concerns about the interception of containers that have been duly cleared by the Nigerian Customs Service at the ports.
“Investors have expressed serious frustrations as a result of this repeated and overlapping process of cargo clearing and release processes.
“This underscores the imperative of proper harmonization within the customs service to minimize the frustrations and pains of investors,” he said.
While analyzing the country’s economic situation in October, Yusuf said that investors, especially real sector players, identified some critical challenges to business as access to foreign exchange, exchange rate depreciation and high inflationary pressures.
Others are crisis at the ports, high cost of diesel, skyrocketing gas prices, and insecurity.
The CPPE boss pointed out that the tempo of economic activities has increased following the progressive relaxation of the COVID-19 restrictions which restricted activities in some sectors of the economy.
He said the rebound in oil price improved the outlook of foreign reserves as well as the capacity of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to fund the foreign exchange market
“The economy witnessed an improvement in the activities and gradual recovery in the entertainment, hospitality, aviation, transportation, trade and commerce, food and beverage sectors, among others.
“As at October, the foreign reserves have crossed the $41 billion threshold.
“The impact on revenue outlook is also positive while these developments would impact positively on investor sentiments,” he said.
Yusuf identified the key drivers of inflation to include exchange rate depreciation, illiquidity in the foreign exchange market, insecurity and structural constraints.
“We implore the government to take critical look at the concerns that have been expressed by business operators and address them in the interest of the investment environment and advancement of the Nigerian economy,” he said.(NAN).
