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Unbanning Textile Import: Manufacturers Ask Govt To Subject Foreign Products To Quality Control

By David Ogah
05 July 2015   |   4:02 am
WITH the removal of Textile and Furniture from import prohibition list, manufactures have urged the Federal Government to register all textile importers and subject all imported materials to quality control.

Textiles-Copy.Stakeholders Accuse Govt Of Double Standard

WITH the removal of Textile and Furniture from import prohibition list, manufactures have urged the Federal Government to register all textile importers and subject all imported materials to quality control.

They also asked the government to compel the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) to be professional in their duty so as to control smuggling in order to prevent the influx of the items into the country.

The Director General of Textile Manufactures Association of Nigeria (TMAN), Mr. Jaiyeola Olanrewaju, said the request for the registration of textile importers and subjecting their imports to quality control was necessary to keep them in business and to retain the current level of employment in the industry.

According to him, textile manufacturers will still continue in their manufacturing business if the quality of the imported ones could be controlled, adding that the local textile products are of higher standard than the imported ones

He said importers are fond of bringing into the country low quality materials at ridiculous prices, making it difficult for locally manufactured products to attract patronage.

“The truth is that we cannot compete because we are at 40 per cent disadvantage in terms of production cost. The foreign manufacturers don’t pay levies, taxes and other tariff to government to bring these items into the country. They only bribe their way. This is despite the fact that cost of production is low in the originating country. All these are making imported textile to be cheaper in the market, and our products cannot compete with the cheap and low quality foreign products. So they need to check the quality of imported products. If they fail to check smuggling of imported textile materials, this policy will eventually kill the industry. Those who cannot compete will close shop and throw more people into the employment market. They should ask all textile importers to register with the government so as to subject their imported items to quality control. They should be made to submit samples of whatever they want to import to the Standard Organisation of Nigerian (SON) to certify their quality as they are doing to drug importers. If they do this and make all imported materials to come in through the ports and pay the necessary fees and levies, the price differential will reduce and our own products will compete favourably,” he said.

But the president of Managing Directors Of Customs License Agents, Lucky Amiwero, told The Guardian that government’s removal of textile from import prohibition list was an error, adding that there was need for the Federal ministry of Finance to make clarification on the matter.

“ I am sure the Nigeria Customs Service made a mistake with the lifting of import prohibition on textile materials. There is need to get clarification from Finance ministry. African print is not on the list. It is under tentative list, because we have local producers. If it is true, the textile industry in Nigeria will be destroyed. Article 19 of the World Trade Organisation(WTO) allows the protection of primary industry in order to generate employment and national growth. The African prints are being manufactured in Nigeria in commercial quantity and there is need to protect the local industry.”

However, Other stakeholders said they were taking the new government policy with a pinch of salt, alleging that the policy shift was as a result of the urge to collect revenue on tons of items believed to have been smuggled in the country and stacked in 20 warehouses in Kano by some Kano textiles traders.

Stakeholders who spoke with The Guardian said the policy shift as it relates to the removal of Textiles from import prohibition list was in bad fate. They therefore joined the Director General, National Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Emmanuel Cobham, to condemn the Government revocation order.

Cobham had said the revocation was bound to further work against the ongoing plans of stabilizing the local textile industry and using it as the bedrock for future employment generation.
 
Lamenting that Government merely unbanned textiles to provide soft landing for Kano textiles traders, particularly to enable them recover their multi-billion Naira merchandize impounded by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), stakeholders expressed their disgust, and wondered why Government denied rice importers similar opportunity.

“From every indication, Government has unbanned importation of textiles, not because of the need to free the market, but simply to waive the seizure of the multi-billion Naira Kano textiles.
 
The Government, which was uncompromising, dishing out stringent policy on rice, has suddenly become complacent, wearing human face, when it comes to cotton? Why the hues and cries when it comes to cotton? Is this the desired change we had hoped and prayed for?” He said he was was not so much concerned with the issue of compliance or readiness to pay duty, but the flagrant manner and impunity, by which the Government has bent double, to ensure that the Kano traders got their goods timely.
 
Customs spokesman, Wale Adeniyi, Deputy Controller, however, denied application of double standard by the service .
Adeniyi, who spoke to Maritime first, an on-line maritime newspaper, said textiles were no longer under government ban, adding that “it is also to everybody’s knowledge that a government which seriously needs money for the execution of important projects could ill-afford to gather up dutiable goods from which over N5 billion could be collected and destroy them all.”
 
“ We did not seize those goods. We only detained them for investigation, during which we first observed that some of those involved were foreigners without legal stay. That was why we brought in the Nigerian Immigration Service.
 
“But subsequent investigation showed that from the 14 assessments made in the first warehouse alone, a total of about N1.1 billion would accrue to government. How much billions do you think would accrue to government at the end of the day? Common sense suggests that Government could prudently invest such billions in more productive projects and ventures, in the overall interest of the common man”, he stated.
 
The Image maker also emphasised that the traders had agreed to pay 35per cent duty, which is the highest duty value for printed fabrics, noting that the only concession granted so far to the traders, was waiving the payment of penalty fee, which the traders could have attracted as further punishment.

In the meantime, the NCS has commenced assessment of Customs duty and other charges on textile materials currently in detention in Kano.  

The exercise is ongoing under the supervision of a Special Task Force, comprising operatives from the NCS and the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC). At the end, it could rake in N10b revenue into government coffers.

The directive to collect duty on the textile products was given by the Comptroller-General of Customs, Dikko Inde Abdullahi, following consultations with the Federal Government and importers of the items.  

At the first warehouse opened for the exercise, 14 importers turned up for assessment and duty payment for their textile items was valued at about N1.5billion in the first week .The importers were expected to pay a combined import duty of N373, 307, 242.16. Subsequently, the total revenue payable on the first set of assessment stood at N576,161,369.1, while another set of assessment worth over N600m  is pending on the outstanding textiles in the same  warehouse.

The assessed items included 20,878 bales of printed African fabrics,  21,980 bales of high grade brocade materials,  6,127 bales of Lace  materials , 554 bales of polyester materials and 30 rolls of curtail  materials.

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