The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has warned that the lifting of forex restrictions on 43 import items could lead to an import surge that could render Nigerian ports a dumping ground for all sorts of imports if fiscal authorities refuse to put in a guideline on what should be imported and what shouldn’t come in as import.
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, Director/Chief Executive Officer of CPPE, Dr Muda Yusuf, explained that it is important that fiscal authorities do the needful to avoid a situation where Nigerian ports may become dumping ground for all manners of imports.
Dr Yusuf said, “The lifting of the restriction policy on those 43 items simply means that all manner of imports can now come into Nigeria. It now behooves our fiscal authorities to live up to expectation because it is their responsibility to ensure our ports don’t become a dumping ground for all manners of imports.
“It is important that Nigeria’s fiscal authorities take a good look at the list of 43 items initially restricted from accessing forex and decide which kind of imports shouldn’t be encouraged.
“Yes, we all know that it is not the responsibility of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to be excluding imports because it is a fiscal responsibility. Now that the CBN has washed its hands off such responsibility, our fiscal authorities need to live up to expectations by determining what import items Nigeria shouldn’t be encouraging.
“With the lifting of the forex restriction policy, what that means is that all the 43 items on that list are now free to be using our forex for importation purposes. The fiscal authorities need to sit down and take a good look at our Finance Act to look at imports we don’t need.
“We have items on that 43 list that actually do not merit to be imported into Nigeria due to our industries.
“The fiscal authorities that I am talking about are the finance ministry in conjunction with the trade and investment ministry. The two ministries need to look at this issue so that we don’t end up extremely liberalising our imports and flooding our ports with all manners of imports.”
Recall that the CBN recently justified its lifting of forex restriction on the 43 items stating that restriction of forex for the 43 import items pushed importers into the parallel market, thereby contributing to the surplus demand for forex, weakening the parallel market exchange rate and pushing up prices.
In a statement issued recently explaining why the restriction was lifted, the CBN said it wants to promote orderliness and professional conduct by all Nigerian foreign exchange market participants to ensure market forces determine exchange rates on a willing buyer-willing seller principle.
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