Well done Team; a great policy which I support: “To this effect, the Central Bank of Nigeria wishes to advise the Nigeria Customs Service and other related parties to adopt the FX rate on the date of opening the Form M for importation of goods, as the FX rate to be used for import duty assessment. This rate remains valid until the date of termination of the importation and clearance of goods by the importers.”
Recall last week that we made a case that it was a bad policy for the Nigerian Customs to use a different FX rate, from the one on Form M, when calculating duties: “Floating Naira does mean we cannot honour contracts. I have posited that Customs should not become a blinded rainmaker for Nigeria as doing that we will make it a poison pill: the more radical revenue from Customs, the more Nigeria’s economy is dying since these revenues are import-driven, not export-driven. We must ask the government to allow predictability in the market system.”
The nation’s economic team has listened, and has made it clear to the Customs: if the Form M has N1000/$, you are not allowed to compute duties at any figure but N1000/$ even if Naira has shifted to N1200/$ (and I guess N800/$). Mr. Peter Obi led that charge; happy the government listened.
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This reversal will bring predictability in the system and even help the Naira as it looks for a number to settle on.
CBN Directs Nigerian Customs to Adopt Same FX rate from Importation to clearance
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