Naira devaluation forces business owners to abandon vehicles at ports

Continuous fluctuations in the Naira exchange rate have created an alarming situation at the ports where business owners/importers are abandoning thousands of heavily used vehicles.

Comptroller Dera Nnadi, Regional Comptroller of the Nigeria Customs Service under the Tin Can Island Command, disclosed this while speaking to members of the Association of Licensed Customs Agents of Nigeria ( ANLCA).

Nnadi denounced the continued decline in commodity output following the order.
He pointed out that the number of vehicles handled by the Command has decreased significantly, from 32,000 in 2018 to just 4,000 in 2023, an 85% decrease in just five years.

“There are some vehicles left at the port because the shippers do not clear customs due to high exchange rates. “Why import when you don’t have money to do customs procedures”, I asked but someone mentioned that imported cars thought they would exchange money for N420 and suddenly it was N770 and car owners in the US gave up, they said.

“We can’t get rid of them, let them stay there.” “From 2018 to 2021, the number of vehicles passing through here will peak at 32,000 vehicles/year. Starting to decrease from 2020, in 2022 it will decrease to 6,000 units, in 2023 it will be 4,000 units,” he lamented.

Dera said the Russia-Ukraine crisis has damaged imports into the country as bulk goods from the country have stopped arriving.

Furthermore, Comptroller Nnadi cited other factors affecting trade and revenue generation, including reduced vehicle imports and high exchange rates.

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He expressed dissatisfaction with the trade policies of former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele and emphasized how the war in Ukraine had disrupted various import activities.

“There is war in Ukraine: grain is no longer supplied; The wheat comes no more; Bulk goods no longer arrive; the road does not come.

My predecessor left here having collected a revenue of 52 per cent of N801 billion in nine months; Godwin Emefiele’s policy was one of the things that caused the delay. Floating of naira when the new government came in is another challenge.

“So you see we’re all in a bind and you’re all in a bind. You wake up to an income pegged to an exchange rate of N420 per dollar to N770 per dollar. That’s another challenge.

Despite these challenges, Nnadi remains committed to achieving its revenue target of N350 billion in the remaining three months of the year. He emphasized the importance of maximizing integrity and ensuring correct procedures are followed to reduce disputes and penalty costs for the benefit of all parties involved.