By Steve Agbota, [email protected]
Customs Area Controller of Tin Can Island Port Command, Dera Nnadi, has said that the concept of regional integration will remove trade barriers impeding movement of goods and services between Nigeria and Benin Republic.
Nnadi who was in charge of Customs activities at Seme/Krake border until he was recently redeployed to Tin Can Island Port Command gave an overview of the recent pact between the leadership of Nigeria Customs Service and Benin Republic Customs, while speaking with newsmen on assumption of office last week.
However, he highlighted harmonising prohibition lists, removing barriers to trade, the need to key into the SIGMAT innovation to track goods in transit and preventing smuggling as some of the gains from the bilateral talks between Nigeria Customs Service and Benin Republic Customs.
Benefit of the Nigeria Benin trade pact and how to address issues arising from goods in transit?
The leadership of Benin Customs were here as a follow up to earlier visit to them by our Comptroller General of Customs (CGC). Now after that, ask yourself if we manufacture goods in Nigeria and we have excess where do we take them to? Are you taking them to Europe where they already have those goods?The things we take away from here to Europe mostly are oil, gas and raw materials. Can you take Coca_cola to the US where the headquarters of Coca-cola is? Is it possible to take furniture from here to Europe, Turkey, Morocco? Can you take textile from here to China? Think about it. Those that would buy these things from us are our neighbours. However, my experience with Seme border is that goods move from Gambia, Togo, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso to Nigeria and they pass through Benin Republic.
What will likely happen If our neighbours close their borders the way we do ours?
You don’t take it for granted because when I went to Seme the impression was that agreement in real term is to promote regional trade and don’t forget, we will still enter Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). All it will take this people to do is to invite companies to establish in their own countries and manufacture.
Everything manufactured in Africa when this thing takes place is now duty free. What do you do? Start protecting. We also found out that most of the business challenges we have is that what we prohibit in Nigeria come into Benin freely.
Used clothing comes there freely, they didn’t prohibit it. Frozen poultry products, which we ban, come in there freely. They didn’t prohibit it. Parboiled rice comes in there freely, of which we have banned completely from land or seaport. They don’t prohibit it but it comes there. Used vehicles of certain age come in there.
Why Benin Republic imports end up here Nigeria?
We then said instead of deploying several resources to checkmate this, why not get smart about it? They offered this idea that we can come to their country and examine these things and stop it there before it comes here. That was a good idea. The main clause for us is that we are harmonising our prohibition list.
Whatever we prohibit in Nigeria, they will also prohibit. That is the first gain we are making. They have also offered that if you are in Nigeria and you import something that is not prohibited through their port, Nigeria Customs Service can come into their port in our own uniform and they will examine the container, the agent will pay duty there and the money will be transferred to Nigeria.
But they asked for something. They said we know that one of the main things that they do is rice. If they decide to ban rice importation as we have banned it, how do they survive? They said it should be graduated.
Not that we will just say no more rice from Cotonou. It is sovereignty, if we stop it, we can say if we are importing five tons a year, we can start by saying we will reduce it to three this year, they will compensate us. Next year we will reduce by one, they will compensate us until within a time frame we will stop importing completely. By then we must have found alternative for our economy. That is what they are saying. It is not as if Nigeria is losing.
Some said we are taking our market and labour to Benin Republic. Life is about competitiveness and that is where all of you here will help. Why is it that from here to Ghana by ship is two hours and three hours maximum? Why is it that from here to Cotonou port by ship is one hour maximum? Why do our people prefer to go to Cotonou to clear their cargo? That means our business process here should be addressed.
If we put our house in order, would anyone go outside to buy? We both have water. If Niger goes to Cotonou to import, I can understand because they are landlocked. What about we that have water here and six ports or more? That means we should do something here collectively.
When they closed Niger border, some people came to Seme to say can we pass through Seme and I said why not? It is free but I asked a man why he is not passing through Nigerian ports because he wants to move cargo from Cotonou, to Sokoto and to Kastina, why didn’t he pass through our ports here to Sokoto and the man said, which road would he pass through? For the man, his challenge is not the maritime industry; his challenge is the road and infrastructure. I asked about what he will do when he moves from Cotonou port and he said he would offload into trucks and go to Kastina and Sokoto through Niger border. I asked why can’t he do the same thing here and not pay for demurrage. He said before he gets to Kastina from here, pilfering, damage and insecurity would stop him because the road is not good. He said from there he can travel even if it is longer, he can travel to Kastina and his goods will be intact. We need to address some of these infrastructural and social deficits.
When are we joining SIGMAT interconnectivity?
We have it and it is part of the company that is called SIGMAT. People were asking for reasons why we are using SIGMAT and why can’t we get our own ICT infrastructure. SIGMAT is actually an ECOWAS product. Even some of our Customs officers from Nigeria are part of the development. Somehow, we didn’t key in. Burkina Faso, Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Cotonou are all using SIGMAT to connect. As part of this agreement, we are working on SIGMAT. As a matter of fact, even while we were holding that meeting, ECOWAS and our officers were working on it and we will soon key in too.
Are we likely seeing the borders open to importation of vehicles and rice?
A committee will still be set up and the government will have to endorse it. It is just like an idea based on the fact that it is already working elsewhere. Other countries in Africa are doing some of these things.
If you go from your port to another person’s port to carry container, you will pay before it comes to your own place. Other countries are doing it. That is regional integration. Those of you that travel intercontinental, if you fly Lufthansa from here, they will check you in Nigeria and the next check will be in Frankfurt and once you are checked in Frankfurt, nobody checks you again in other European countries. That is exactly what we want to do. If you are carrying potato from Denmark to Belgium, once they check you between Denmark and Belgium, until the potato enters London, France, or USA, nobody checks you again. Why can’t we do it here? Why are we always making things look so difficult?
We are not bringing rice; they are saying they will stop importing rice for our sake since we don’t want it. It is not automatic but it is a proposal made and we both signed to commit to that proposal. If the committee works out, we will achieve it that is just what we have done. Another thing, which we discussed, that is very important is transit fees.If you are moving cargo from Ivory Coast for instance to Nigeria like Lever Brothers or Cardbury for example, not the exact figure please.
Assuming you pay N2 as transit administrative charges from Ivory Coast to Togo and Ghana, that same cargo you are paying N2 for each country, the moment you get into Benin Republic, it increases from N2 to N1000. That is what we are protesting.
They over charge Nigerian goods in transit.
Where other countries like Ghana are charging us N5 Naira, Togo will charge us N5, once it enters Cotonou, it becomes N10, 000. It is part of what we discussed that they should also reduce but they also complained that when they come to Lagos to buy things, and they want to go back to their country, we have more than 80 checkpoints that also allegedly collect money from their traders and there is no receipt issued. We also agreed that we will remove those check points.
We removed checkpoints, barriers to trade; they will also