Isaac Anumihe
Task force on ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme yesterday rated Nigeria low in intra-regional trade, saying that there are too many non-tariff barriers along the Benin and Nigeria corridor.
Speaking during a one-day workshop in Lagos, Permanent Secretary of ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme Task Force, Moustapha Gnankambary, regretted that in Nigeria there are so many agencies working uncoordinatedly at the borders. This practice, he said, adds to the cost of the cargo and loss of revenue for the governments of the member states.
According to him, these abnormal practices include collection of illegal fees from persons at the borders and along the corridors; existence of multiple checkpoints along the corridors and in most cases, civilians mount checkpoints with the purpose of extorting others.
Other impediments to trade, he said, include slowness of procedures for NAFDAC and SON, non-recognition of certificates of origin issued by the member states; multiplicity of agencies present at the borders and along the corridors and restriction of access to foreign currencies.
Also, the Executive Secretary of Borderless Alliance, Justin Bayili, revealed that while intra-regional trade level in Europe is 71 per cent, Asia 53 per cent, South Africa, 48 per cent and ECOWAS is as low as 12 per cent.
To this end, he called for the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade and transport, simplification and harmonisation of procedures and investment promotion.
“Establishment of border information centres to facilitate easy movement of goods across borders, information dissemination, public and private dialogue through workshops, roadshows and caravans for effective policy implementation and piloting barriers to trade in West Africa,” he said.
But in his remarks, Executive Secretary of Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), Hassan Bello, explained that a number of reforms targeted at removing critical bottlenecks and bureaucratic constraints in doing business in Nigeria, particularly in trading across borders, have been successfully implemented. This, he said, has seen Nigeria move up 24 places in the World Bank Doing Business Ranking from 189 to 165 in 2018.
Bello who was represented by a Manager in the council, Ms Adaora Nwonu, listed some of the completed reforms as acceleration of pre-export documentation procedures by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), and banks.
Others are reduction in documentation requirements, reduction in container placement notice time, provision of advanced cargo manifest, co-ordination of joint cargo examination by NCS and enforced timeline for processing NXP form and automation.
To this end, he moved for the harmonisation of the process and integration of platforms of complementary agencies; full implementation of the national single window as well as introduction of International Cargo Tracking Note (ICTN).