Clearing agents operating at the nation’s seaports have labelled Nigeria’s National Automative Policy, also known as, Auto Policy a scam.
The agents speaking under the aegis of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), stated that since the introduction of the policy in 2013, the country can barely produce spare parts while few are smiling to the banks under the guise of being local assemblers and manufacturers.
Acting president of ANLCA, Kayode Farinto, in a felicitation message to Muslims over the celebration of this year’s Eid-El Kabir, said that the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has become unprofessional due to loose regulation of the Service by the Ministry of Finance.
According to ANLCA, “Professional colleagues, on behalf of the National Executive Committee of our great Association and myself, we Felicitate with our Muslims brothers and sisters on this occasion of Eid El Kabir celebration. Congratulations to all of us.
“This year’s celebration, even though solemn, attest to the fact that Nigeria, our Nation is going through lots of security challenges as a result of Intelligence and security collapse, hence we advice our members to be security conscious during and after the Sallah celebration.
“We as trade facilitators will continue to do our best to ensure that more revenue is generated into the federation account, as part of our nation building. However, we are using the opportunity to appeal to the Federal Government to revisit many issues that can touch the lives of many Nigerian grassroots.
issues need reviewing.”
“The entire Auto policy is a scam that has continued to enrich few individual Nigerians at the detriment of our economy. With the introduction in the last 10 years or more, we have been unable to produce ordinary radiator, meanwhile, few are smiling to the banks with our money under the guise of being local Assemblers and manufacturers. It is high time we revised this policy.
The ANLCA boss, however, stated that age limit of vehicles should be reviewed from 12 to 15 years.
“The age limit on imported vehicles needs to be reviewed to at least 15years from the current 12 years. The Federal Government needs to have consistent policy in the maritime industry. This trial by Error of the government must be stopped forthwith. Just when we thought there is Eureka in the transportation ministry, the government decided to change the minister and bring a new person that will start learning and commencing visitation in the next three months. We are stagnant and not really moving forward with this retrogresive steps every time.and it is encouraging Neocolonialism.
“The federal government in line with international best practices needs to re-organise and re-orientate the management of the Nigeria Customs service from the present moribund one. The present one has continually brought confusion to the trading community with her high handedness that lacks control and checks to the extent that the Federal Ministry of Finance has lost her supervisory role; hence the high level of non professionalism of the service to the nation.
“Finally, we urge our members to increase our level of compliance to show our patriotism to the Nation. As professionals that we are known for, we charge the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) to brace up to her responsibilities by giving qualitative leadership and increase capacity building for the freight forwarders.
“It is rather unfortunate that, ANLCA has been shouting for a very long time that foreigners are gradually taking over our profession but up till now, there seems to be no solution in sight to nip this in the bud. The government needs to do something urgently before the issue slips out of control.”
