By Obiabin Onukwugha
Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi, has expressed concern over the instability of the Naira. The naira has continued to depreciate against the dollar.
Last weekend, the CBN further raised the import exchange rate, a situation that sparked reactions from Nigerians, especially maritime stakeholders.
In a crucial meeting with the Senate Committee on Monday, Adeniyi also made case for stakeholders in the blue economy as relates Duty increase and spot FX rate adoption.
Adeniyi said he was pained by the volatility in the exchange rate regime.
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He said: “In fact, even if it stays high and people can predict that this is what it will take me to clear, perhaps it is not particularly too bad, but when it is so volatile, today it is X, tomorrow it is X+10, X+20, it does not make for adequate planning and things like that.
“Correctly, it is the mandate of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN to fix the rate, either the one we use during Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF or the one we use for importation or the one used for payment of Customs duties.
“I have been in discussions with my minister. Perhaps, what you are going to advocate is that there would be a meeting point between authorities of government that are in charge of monetary policy and those in charge of fiscal policies.
“Personally, what I think we can do is to get a spot rate for some time. We can agree that for Q, Y 2024 this will be the spot rate for payment of Customs duties; we could say for the first half of the year.”
The Customs boss also disclosed that the agency is seeking approval from the federal government to allow it give waivers to owners of smuggled cars so ass to enable them to regularise their payment of Customs duties.
Earlier, the Senate alerted the NCS that the N5.079tn 2024 revenue target of the agency will be reviewed upwards from the second half of the year to save the country from further borrowings.
