CBN’s fiscal policy uncoordinated - LCCI

The Director General of the Lagos Chambers of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Dr Muda Yusuf, has described as uncoordinated, the Trade policy strategy of the Federal Government.

Yusuf made the remark while responding to the keynote lecture on leveraging free trade agreements for Nigeria’s economic development by Professor Benedict Oramah, president of the African Export Import Bank, Cairo, Egypt at the Bullion lecture by the Centre for Financial Journalism held in Lagos, yesterday.

Yusuf said: “Right now, our trade policy regime is very uncoordinated. Every agency of government is just throwing all sort of spanners in the works.

“Just last year, we were doing a review of our fiscal policy documents, where surgical and medical equipment were subjected to a tariff of 70 percent from about 10 percent,” he said.

He explained that it is not right because, this is not something the country produced, “but some bureaucrats just seat somewhere, and they move tariffs up and down, they put all sort of things on the Import Prohibition list.”

Yusuf said: “The Central Bank has joined the trail in coming up with a parallel trade policy. It started with 41 items, it went to 42, to 50. Although they say it is monetary policy but is it indeed a trade policy tool.”

All these are issues of coordination, he said, arguing further that the country’s industrialisation policy strategy is anchored on protectionism. “Each time our manufacturers speak, they speak of what product should be banned, what tariff should go up and so on, to the extent that our customs are spending 80 percent of their resources chasing smugglers here and there even at the expense of their lives.”

He said government needs to review the policies to emphasis more on competitiveness, noting that despite all the barrier, there is a lot of free trade in the informal economy.

Earlier in his address, Prof Oramah said: “Ultimately, Nigeria will sign the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTA),” adding that the Nigerian government acted wisely in broadening consultation with stakeholders.

He said the consultation should be rapidly concluded to enable the country join early negotiation on agreements in key areas.