The President of the Nigeria Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Mr. Dele Oye has stated that the duties collection by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) should be charged in Naira rather than in another foreign currency.
He stated this during an interview on Arise Tv News Night where he highlighted efforts by the Association to boost industrialisation and commented on recent policies by the government especially on the exchange rate.
According to him, the federal government should walk its talk of conducting business in naira by ensuring the Nigeria customs charges duties collection in Naira instead of foreign currencies.
- He stated, “Government must not be seen to be making money off trade. Customs is a trade facilitation unit and the customs has no business charging the FX index rate. We should use the Form M rate which is a percentage of it and that is what you should use.
- “If government is saying it believes in naira, it must charge in naira for its services. We don’t have a dollar problem, we have a naira problem. The government should show by its own actions that it must conduct its business in Naira. Why are you saying people should do business in naira, but you are calculating your customs duties in FX? This kind of thing does not work anywhere in the world.”
Furthermore, the NACCIMA boss faulted the frequent changes in the FX rate for customs duties payment saying it does not bode well for planning purposes.
Call on CBN to intervene in the FX market
He also called on the CBN to sustain the recent reforms in the forex market which has led to the appreciation of the naira.
He stated that as a country, we cannot afford to float our currency noting that the fundamentals of the economy does not back such policies.
He emphasized that there should be some intervention in the forex market especially for businesses that import raw materials for production and that the recent directive from the CBN to BDCs to sell FX at a particular price is intervention.
