By Steve Agbota   

Following the increase of the exchange rate for the calculation of customs duty payment by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from N783/$ to N952/$, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has said that applying efficient and speedy port operations will help to  minimise the economic plight of importers at the nation’s ports.

The Customs Area Controller (CAC), Tin Can Island Port Command, Dera Nnadi, said this while speaking recently at the 25th anniversary of the League of Maritime Editors in Lagos and assured the freight forwarders and the trading community that the Tin Can Customs Command will optimise service delivery and facilitate trade to reduce the impact of the increase in exchange rate on port users.

The CBN had increased the exchange rate for the calculation of customs duty from seven hundred and eighty three naira, one hundred and seventy four kobo (N783. 174) per dollar to nine hundred and fifty one naira, nine hundred and forty one kobo (N952.941) per dollar on Thursday morning. He pointed out that the officials of the Service were in the same dilemma as the rest of Nigerians over the exchange rate increase.

“We will try and facilitate trade so that whatever little thing you would have paid as demurrage can be used to make up for this and that’s the one I can manage. The other ones, the Nigeria Customs Service cannot manage it because it’s a function of the the Federal Government’s directive. There’s no supermarket where they sell Customs’ bread, all of us buy from the same place. Everything that happens to the economy affects Customs officers too.

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“We understand the implications of this to trade bearing in mind that letters of credit have been opened, contracts have been signed, supply requirements have been made, people have negotiated business transactions and decisions on business have been taken based on the existing exchange rate. We recognised the import of this exchange rate adjustment especially when it is done without a prior notice on trade.

“We recognise what the Nigerian business community is going through now but there is little we can do about fiscal and monetary policies. Our role is to implement them. We didn’t make them up but we align ourselves with government policies. Every government decision taken is for the collective interest of the nation and I expect that we must all abide by it,” he said.

Speaking earlier, the President of League of Maritime Editors, Timothy Okorocha, encouraged President Bola Tinubu to exercise the required political will to ensure the rehabilitation of collapsed critical port infrastructure as well as speedy disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF), established since 2003. He commended the unbundling of the Transportation Ministry with the establishment of the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy.

“As development partners, the League looks forward to the effective participation of the respective agencies in the current administration’s renewed agenda template; and want to see the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) move away from the ritual of endless talk and lamentations into doing the needful, the reconstruction of broken down asset and infrastructure,” he said.

Okorocha expressed delight at the 25th anniversary of the group of veteran journalists and lavishly thanked the industry stakeholders who graced the occasion.