By Ambrose Obioma Okehi (News Emperor)
Nigerians have frowned at the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and their rigorous and illegal attitude of substituting and subletting their official and constitutional responsibilities to unauthorised and unofficial persons in the society.
The issues appointing non-career officers as to head the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) as by government of the years was also said to be unacceptable, not helpful to the trading public and hinders career officers from getting to the topmost height of their career.
The notorious checkpoints that is over-stretched across borderways is also a hinderance to trade facilitation.
All these were articulated by concerned Nigerians are currently lamenting what these challenges have cost the Nigerian business community as well as the essesses of the unscrupulous elements called Kelebe in a local slangs (un-uniformed persons) in their officeial duty posts, saying it is constituting embarrassments and hindering free flow of trade within the border corridors.
It is for this reason a group has called in the president-elect, Ashisaju Ahmed Tinubu to come to the aid of the trading public by ensuring that the issue of Kelebe becomes a thing of the past.
The group, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) who are not happy with the development which has been there for yesrs, has urged the incoming administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu to do everything possible to remove all Customs checkpoints within the country adding that the practice of intercepting cargoes that have been duly cleared at any of the nation’s ports or border station constitute to extortion.
The group alleged the the-so-called Kelebe (non-career officers), which has been proven to be extortionist should be looked into and dealt with by the government of Ashisaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
This was contained in a statement made available to the press by, CPPE Director, Muda Yusuf, who equally urged the new administration to stop the every practice of appointing non-career officers as Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service.
They noted through the statement, “the appointment of non-career persons is detrimental to professionalism and morale of career officers in the Customs Service.
The Director of CPPE in its economic agenda for the incoming administration leaded with Tinubu government to prioritize trade facilitation and remove all non-tariff barriers to trade.
He however pointed out that there should be a balance between the revenue objectives and trade facilitation objectives of the Nigeria customs Service as according to him there is currently a disproportionate focus on revenue generation. He added that the new administration should ensure tariff regime that adequately protects local industries. “Import duty on intermediate products and critical industrial inputs should be reviewed to reduce production costs. “Tariff review processes should be more inclusive and transparent,” he added. Yusuf said the Nigerian economy is in a stumbling and fragile state, hence the need for a new direction.
According to CPPE, “The administration should establish quality economic governance consistent with tested economic principles and empirical evidence, and contextualized within socio-economic peculiarities. This is critical from the onset of the administration for signaling and investors’ confidence. Good economic governance framework would entail the following: ” Setting up a transition committee on the economy to come up with propositions of what needs to be done differently and ensure the delivery quick wins in the first one month of the administration. “Technically sound economic team to give guidance and direction on general economic policy direction, policy conceptualization and urgent reforms. “An economy where there is level playing field for all players with a transparent economic policy formulation process. “Competitive economic environment with minimum monopoly dominance. “Expand the role of markets for value delivery and boosting of private enterprise in the economy. State institutions do not have the capacity to manage enterprises. “Robust monitoring and evaluation framework to regularly review the effectiveness and impact of economic policies and regulatory practices. “Robust and regular stakeholder engagement by key government agencies to ensure proper alignment of policies with investors sentiments. ”
They insisted that government institutions that play technical roles should be headed by tested technocrats.”
Yusuf, according to the statement as well urged the incoming administration Tinubu to prioritize macroeconomic stability with emphasis on moderating inflationary pressures, stabilizing the exchange rate and boosting economic growth. He also noted the need for the Tinubu administration to reform tax regime to ensure efficiency in tax administration, reduce tax evasion and tax avoidance as well as elimination of multiple taxation. “Elimination of fuel subsidy to save an estimated N7 trillion annually. “Elimination of foreign exchange subsidy to unlock a minimum of N3 trillion revenue annually from the sale of CBN forex to the official foreign exchange window. “Unlock more income from revenue generating agencies through enhanced efficiency of their operations. “Initiate budget reforms to ensure fiscal discipline, curb budget padding, curb duplication of projects and review the service wide votes to ensure transparency, he said.