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By Steve Agbota, [email protected]
National President of the Africa Association of Professional Freight Forwarders and Logistics of Nigeria (APFFLON), Otunba Frank Ogunojemite, has identified unfavourable government policies as reasons investors are running away from Nigeria’s maritime sector.
According to him, investors can only come into an economy when they see green light or prospects in a country they want to invest in which is the more reason government needs to be careful when formulating policies.
He also stated how the sudden closure of the nation’s borders without proper notification and substantial reasons discouraged businesses around the land borders.
Ogunojemite narrated how manypeople suffered losses during the border closure. “ People lost money, jobs, businesses, their lives in search of other options to sustain their businesses” He said
He discussed other issues as they affect the maritime sector in the first half of the year and what government needs to do to encourage indigenous production to attract foreign exchange into the country.
Excerpts:
Assessment of the nation’s maritime sector
Basically, we are talking about assessment of the maritime output in the country. We all know there have been a lot of issues in the maritime industry, ranging from VReg, VIN platform and other issues resulting to town hall meeting with freight forwarders and motor dealers, which actually led to some set back in the industry.
Those issues have increased the cost of importation into the country because during the time the VIN was introduced, it was not properly implemented and that jerked up duty paid on vehicles and there was protest, which amount to rent in the form of demurrage to the people. With that, we have had a lot of hard times in the process. That is one of the few things we experienced. As I’m talking to you now, we are having issues with Customs payment.
For instance, if we make a payment through the bank, it doesn’t come to Customs platform or through the Central Bank of Nigeria. So, as I’m talking to you now, people have been unable to continue with Customs process and that is going to amount to rent, high cost of living and inflation while revenue by Customs will be highly reduced.
In as much we are trying to clear cargoes at the ports, this impediment is affecting it. So these are the things I’ll tell you, the issues of VRE, e-Customs and the rest have become obstacles to ease of doing business in the port during the first half of the year.
Business activities struggling to resume at Seme border two years after reopening
One thing about Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is that it only comes when an investor sees the green light or the prospects in the country they want to invest in. The sudden closure of the borders without proper notification and substantial reasons has discouraged businesses along the land borders. A lot of people suffered losses during the border closure. People lost money, jobs, businesses and their lives. And people have to look for other options to sustain their businesses. So, for you now to let people have a confidence, government have to do a lot of sensitisation and needs to be very careful with their policy.
Without putting things into consideration, some policies will just come up in a day; all these things are discouraging investment, which is going to be an impediment to business. I must confess to you, the border closure, I wouldn’t say I see anything achieved by government. According to information, the border closure increased smuggling instead of reducing it. Look at the Customs, DSS, Police and others, carrying ammunition around, where are they gone? It will take a lot of time before business can come alive at the border again. If we really want to talk about border control, it doesn’t have to be exclusively restricted to land borders. It has to be something government needs to do professionally because we have both approved and unapproved routes around these borders. So government needs to invest on technology to man the borders. You know there is ECOWAS Trade Liberation Scheme, I don’t know if the other countries actually have an alliance with Nigeria before the border been closed and if you look at this, it has started to reprisal attacks from other borders when Nigeria’s goods will be unlawfully or intentionally stopped along the roads.
You can think about Illakoji and Togo, a lot of things, cargoes are lying down and people suffering losses. In fact, some people committed suicide especially those who collected loans from Micro Finance banks to import goods.
So government needs to consider people while taking decisions and honouring the ECOWAS agreement. So I don’t know if the ECOWAS agreement was considered before the border closure was introduced. According to verified and edited information, we learnt that there was no consultation among ECOWAS countries before Nigeria closed its borders. I don’t know if there’s any prior engagement before the border was reopened. According to information our members are giving us, businesses are dead in that area not even that, the border closure has increased smuggling because there are lots of unapproved routes in Nigeria.
Look at how NDLEA and other agencies apprehending people on the sea and everywhere. Government should have applied understanding in a way than policy that will make them to lose money. And when you are taking the policy, you consider the welfare of the citizens. Like you say it is only Dangote moving around the border, which is very obvious!
So government needs to consider other people who are not in the same league with billionaires of the country. If I should say, government has no reason to close the border then. What it should have done was to invest in border control and retrain its officers.
Importers abandoned land border for seaports due to containerised policy
Well, you look at issues from different perspectives. For instance, containarised cargo is not a new thing and we have open cargo even bulk cargo too. Even from China, there are some items you cannot put in a container. They have to come through bulk cargo or open container. And secondly, even when the land border was even booming, there was actually importation through the sea. We have a Kumasi vessel and others within West coats and that have been operating. To be honest with you, if land border as effective as it supposed to be, that could have actually reduce congestion at our seaports because you know what we are trying to do in eliminating return container. It is not that it is cheaper for importing containers through the port, it delays a lot of things before bringing container out and you pay a duty even at Seme as well. I believe that government did not think twice before they made that decision. So the decision or the policy has to balance each other.
It is cheaper coming through the road (border) than the sea because we are actually connected to each other.
