The leadership of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has described baseless reports on online platforms claiming that freight forwarders in the country would go on strike from Monday to protest the imposition of a 15 per cent National Automotive Council (NAC) levy on imported second-hand vehicles.
One Alhaji Rilwan Amuni, who claimed to be a youth leader of ANLCA at Tin Can Island Port, was quoted in the viral report to have circulated a strike notice Friday, asking Customs brokers to brace up for a one-day warning strike on Monday to protest the controversial 15 per cent NAC levy.
In a swift reaction, Kayode Farinto, the Acting National President of ANLCA, condemned the call for strike and disowned the conveyor of the message. “The ANLCA is not going on strike on account of the NAC levy.
The call for a strike is by a faceless group in the Tin can port and we shall deal with the situation appropriately. “Who signed the notice?
That character is not a member of ANLCA and has no license. Whoever heeds his call for a strike does so at his or her own risk.” the ANLCA chieftain warned He said the action of the “faceless group” does not enjoy the support of the ANLCA top hierarchy. In a similar vein, the association said that the leadership of the five accredited freight forwarding associations is working in tandem to resolve the controversial NAC levy. The Secretary-General of the ANLCA, Alhaji Abdulaziz Mukaila, said that the freight forwarders confraternity has decided to engage the Federal Ministry of Finance on the issue.
When we held a meeting with the Customs last Wednesday, we found out that the agency was not responsible for the imposition of the levy but the Ministry of Finance. “We have therefore written to the ministry and only got the acknowledgement of our letter Thursday.
“Hopefully, the five accredited freight forwarding associations will hold a meeting with the ministry officials next week,” the ANLCA Chief Scribe told our reporter. Alhaji Mukaila explained further that the controversy on the Vehicles Identification Number (VIN) valuation policy has been resolved amicably with the Customs.
“At the meeting, we had with the Customs, we were satisfied with the outcome. “The Customs has agreed to build in a 10 per cent depreciation level of vehicles before the policy, which is on suspension now, is re-launched”. The ANLCA Chief Scribe further gave details of the meeting. “There is an extant law that stipulates that you cannot bring in a vehicle above 10 years.
“This age limit has been built into the system as the cut-off year. “So if anyone brings in a 1970 year car, he should be ready to pay the amount of 2013. “We agreed to that and the 10 per cent depreciation by compound accounting will be applied to give each car 10 years’ depreciation by value.
“That was worked out in our presence and in the process of getting 10 per cent. It is ok with us. “The only thing we asked the Customs to do is to look into how they can build in accident and salvage vehicles so that whoever brings in cars in that category, there would be a way of differentiating those cars in that category from those that are fully-built of the same year.
“The Customs has promised to work on that and invite us back before launching it. “So far so good,” Mukaila stated.
