Nigeria Customs versus ease of doing business in aviation

WITHOUT doubt, Nigeria is a country blessed with all it needs to lead the African continent and even be amongst the best countries, owing to its natural endowments and its strategic position.

All these good natural phenomena have trickled down to its aviation sector in particular as can be attested to in the leading role the sector is playing among the global aviation community.

Obviously, with the strategic position the country’s aviation sector is occupying which should effortlessly make it the first among equals coupled with the large traffic abound, there are challenges still overshadowing these potential gifts.

Talking about population, the location and the huge number of Nigerians travelling all through the year, the country should be far ahead of any country on the African continent.

Unfortunately, rather than use all these obvious opportunities to make things work, reverse has been the case just for the simple lack of patriotism and sincerity and overzealousness being displayed by some officials at some government agencies.

It is no longer news that Nigeria’s aviation sector like in other climes is guided by the same international rules and regulations that make the laws of air transport uniform everywhere for the safety of air travels.

Again, because of the capital intensive nature and the sensitivity of the sector as it involves the movement of humans, governments across the world often, out of sympathy and understanding of the risk involved in ensuring safety, give some exemptions such as duty waivers and taxes to airlines, the aviation agencies and other service providers.

All these incentives are meant to encourage the airline operators and others who continue to invest in the sector against all obvious odds that have discouraged many other investors.

Therefore, it will not be a big deal for Nigeria to encourage this sector particularly the private investors who still choose to invest in airline business and other aviation matters through different incentives.

While the present government of President Muhammadu Buhari seems to have tried to support the airlines through the waiving of customs duty on aircraft spare parts coming into the country, it is uncertain if the Customs, an agency of government responsible for implementing this presidential approval is complying with the directive as information gathered has shown how Customs officials still find ways of creating problematic bottlenecks for the operators at the airports and ports while having safety components to clear.

The latest of these bottlenecks which, unknown to the Custom officials, often create  negative impressions that can subsequently discourage both private and foreign investors from the sector and the country in general has to do with how the overzealousness of some customs officials at Lagos airport almost truncated the efforts of Dana Air to bring in a specialist with a safety equipment from Kenya to carry out a Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RSVM) monitoring to check the accuracy of the altitude of the airline’s aircraft.

Though information gathered said the issue had been resolved, but this was not until after many hours of delays which almost frustrated the partnership.

This latest development happened to be one of such unnecessary bureaucracies the airlines and even the agencies are subjected to by the customs contrary to the existing presidential directives.

It is on record how some gigantic critical safety equipment that were brought in by the various aviation agencies to further aid safer operations were made to remain at the port for months and even years due to frivolous demands from the Customs.

This attitude of the customs and many more are not in the interest of private investments and that of the entire sector as they only contribute to pushing interested investors to other countries like Ghana.

It is this type of high handedness on the parts of the various government officials that had robbed the sector of previous opportunities that were originally conceived for Nigeria but subsequently diverted to other African countries that do not possess the potential that abound here.

There is therefore, the need for the agencies of government like the customs to tread softly as they conduct their functions in order not to kill private and public interests. They can still play their role without contradicting the federal government policies particularly in sensitive sectors like aviation in line with the ease of doing business of the same government.

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