Exporters seek scrapping of export levies, warehouse cost reduction
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Stakeholders have again cried out over multiple levies, complex processes, and documentation by a plethora of government agencies extorting fees from exporters at the Lagos Ports.
They urged Abuja to scrap export levies on agricultural produce and registration charges on Domestic Export Warehouses (DEWs).
Kola Awe, former Chairman of the Export Group of the Nigerian Association of Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), lamented export levy of $5 each on five different cargoes, including cocoa, ginger, cotton, and rubber.
Awe said exporters avoid taking their goods to government export warehouses because of such levies.
He cited the expensive cost of registering at the export warehouses and urged the federal government to reduce it to encourage their patronage by exporters.
Awe, Chief Executive Officer of XPT Logistics, sought harmonisation of all agencies to facilitate seamless transactions.
“Our ports are not yet paperless. When it comes to the examination side, the same number of agencies are there. It impedes the whole essence of global best practices and competitiveness. The processes are extremely too much,” he said.
“Why are exporters running from the export warehouses? It is because of the export levy, that the federal government should scrap export levies and register more warehouses.
“The Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) on export says that all exports must originate from export warehouses, but today, 80 per cent of exports do not originate from these warehouses.”
Awe stressed the need for the government to adopt technology for port process.
“Deploying technology in Nigeria is war, there are shipping lines today that you cannot go inside, they would tell you to go and send it by mail, yet the container is there, accruing demurrage because it takes them days to respond to the mail.
“We have one problem currently where the exporter pays $200 per day; the problem is not from the exporter but from the shipping line.”
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Digitalisation of export document processes
Olusegun Awolowo, Executive Secretary of the National Action Committee, Africa Continent Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), urged Nigeria to digitalise and automate to streamline trade document processes, via reporting by The Guardian.
In his view, the country should implement a single platform for trade documentation that will reduce time and cost for cross-border trade.
“The single window platform is particularly sad for me. Nigeria was at one point made the Chairman of the single window platform at the United Nations Trade Organisation and it is frustrating that Nigeria has not started implementing the single window platform. Ghana and Senegal have started implementation,” he said.
“We came back home and pushed for the government to make this happen. We made some little progress, they are now working on it and I think before the end of the year, Customs would have done that for us and that would enable trade documentation, reduce time and customs assisted with cross-border trade.”
