Steve Agbota, [email protected]
When the Federal Government raised the age limit of vehicles from 10 years to 15 years in 2010, its overall intention was to curb dumping of over aged and outdated vehicles into the country.
At the same time, the government was also propagating that vehicles manufactured in 2004 and below should not be allowed into the country or cleared by the Nigeria Customs Service. The thinking was that over-aged and accidented vehicles were considered not eco-friendly to the Nigerian evnvironment.
To boost the directive, the government in 2013, launched a new auto policy with the aim of boosting local automobile production, which prescribed 35 per cent customs duty on imported used vehicles and 35 per cent levy and 35 per cent customs duty for new vehicles, bringing the duty paid to 70 per cent.
Since then, the policy has been creating problems for the nation’s transportation industry.
Today however, old and accidented vehicles are still flooding almost terminals at the nation’s seaports especially the Lagos ports.
Industry stakeholders have however argued that the policy has done more harm than good to the nation’s economy as most Nigerians can no longer afford new and good vehicles.
Already, the policy has continued to fuel smuggling of cars through the land borders with importers deliberately avoiding Nigeria’s seaports by diverting their cargoes to other neighbouring countries especially Cotonou where they pay less than 10 per cent import duty while seeking other ingenous ways of smuggling them into the country.
However, importers who can not go through the other neighbouring ports now abandoned importation of new and under aged vehicles for over aged and damaged used vehicles from Europe and America.
Speaking with Daily Sun, former member of Presidential Taskforce on Reform of Customs, Lucky Amewiro, said that the Nigeria auto policy has failed when compared to other countries auto policies.
According to him, the auto policy is creating transport problem because there are a lot of auto policies that geared towards making vehicles unaffordable. The vehicles are very expensive and most of them are no longer affordable.
“We have policy on papers but we are not seeing the reality on ground. This policy has been there since 2013. We are making our position to be able to make things right but we find out that the government is not interested in anything at all or in any changes that is just the truth.
It is now obvious that every sector of the economy is having problem and the government is not ready to make any changes. Nigeria is no longer what it used to be when one will write the government, and it would look into the issue and resolve it promptly.
Look at Ghana’s auto policy and you can see it is quite different from Nigeria’s. Nigeria’s own is expensive. Most of the vehicles are not affordable and are not vehicles a common man can lay hands on,” he argued.
He said an accidented vehicle is a different thing. While the auto policy is talking about manufacturing new vehicles and bringing them in, the policy has virtually made the vehicles very expensive and unreachable for the common man.
“The impact of the policy, if you look at our trailer, our own policy is always done on revenue generation instead of investment. Our auto policy is extremely faulty. You cannot see the relevance of the policy.
“If you see Ghana’s auto policy, you will be shocked. The Ghana auto policy is for the middle class to own cars. But our own policy is working up to 70 per cent and is increasing everyday. You pay duty more than is necessary. Our policy is not designed for the poor; it is just a policy on papers,” he said.
For his part, the President, Shippers Association, Lagos State, Mr Jonathan Nicole, said Nigeria should take it one after the other because without these cars people are bringing, transportation would have been something else.
“The accidented vehicles are covered by insurance companies. So when cars like that get accident, instead of them going for repair, they write off those cars. Insurance companies will write them off and Nigerians will go and buy.
“So when they bring it here, take it to the workshop, replace the damaged part that will last for another three to four years. That is the way of helping the Federal Government with their transport system because Nigerian transport system is epileptic,” he said.
However, he said the auto policy should be something that Federal Government should have given about 15 to 20 years masterplan and in between these years, they can begin to bring the cars in, as government can’t do everything at the same time.