NAGAFF president, Chief Ezisi.
Story by Dili Utomi.
The President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Chief Tochuwku Ezisi has advised his members to quickly put in strategies in their business plans to adjust to the new Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) adjusted import duty exchange rate which moved down from ₦1,405/$ to ₦1,364/$.
In a telephone interview with Chief Ezisi in the early hours of Thursday, he expressed concerns over the incessant increase in import duty exchange rate since last year, in his words “l have been so worried for the past few months and seriously uncomfortable with the constant 24 hourly increase in import duty exchange rate by the Federal Government. But l want to categorically state that it has not been the best for our economy because we are still very import-dependent”
Chief Ezisi expressed his feeling saying “It gave me some relief when my stock exchange manager called to give me the good news that the exchange rate came down from ₦1,405/$ to ₦1,364/$. The shippers are grateful, but like Oliver Twist, we are appealing to the Federal Government to still bring down this exchange rate to enable us all clear backlogs of cargoes at the ports so that they would not become over time cargoes”.
“Each time I see Shipper’s cargoes being auctioned because of the issue of non-payment of statutory fees and cargoes become over time, someone somewhere is dying of heart attacks or at least is sent out of business. Even though some of the mistakes and delays in cargo clearance are from Terminal Operators and Shipping Companies and in some cases Government agencies, we would continue to put up with it until sanity returns”.
The NAGAFF boss equally felicitates the members of NAGAFF and all freight forwarders over the Easter celebration. He urged everyone to reflect more on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ during this harsh economic situation that Nigeria is facing now as it is all just for a little while.
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