…Appeals for tax reductions for local businesses

The Chairman, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, NAGAFF, Tincan Island Port chapter, Mr. Emeka Paul Chiedozie has called on all his members to capitalize on the Foreign Exchange ban lifted on 43 items recently by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN to plan ahead of November and December 2023 which is usually the peak period.

Chiedozie who made this call in a chat with some journalists in his office in Lagos on Friday applauded the federal government through the CBN for taking a bold step towards lifting the forex ban on the items adding that the federal government has by this move further demonstrated its intention to get the business environment in the country right.

He said, “I am fully in support of the federal government through CBN lifting the forex ban on these 43 items because Nigerian is not a producing country rather a consuming nation. Let’s stop deceiving ourselves and stop killing the economy.

“It’s not news that Nigeria is import dependent nation, the right structures were not put in place by federal government before forex allocation on those 43 items were banned, only one ma to’ monopolize importations of some cargoes without paying duty. With this development, the Nigerian Customs Services, NCS will enforce duty collection now on the 43 items.

“The competition will be high now and prices of goods like rice will fall. Although the local manufacturers would be affected by this development, they should bear with Nigerians because the level of hunger in the land is too much.

“CBN did this in order to boost liquidity in the Nigerian Foreign Exchange market, but where are the dollars to import these items? I want the CBN to do the needful for dollars to come down so that the economy can bounce back, This l believe will happen very soon.”

The Chairman added that the federal government should find a way to reduce the tax imposed on manufacturers so that they could still be in business.