Customs duties rise three times under Tinubu’s Central Bank

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, increased the Customs duties exchange rate for the third time in 2024.

Import duties have been reviewed upward to N1,417.63 per US dollar from N1,413.62.

With the upward review, Nigerians will pay more to clear their goods at the port because import duties are benchmarked against the dollar.

This represents an increase of N4.015 and a percentage increase of 0.28 per cent, as the official exchange traded at N1,469.97 per US Dollar at the foreign market on Friday.

The current upward review of the exchange rate for calculating customs import duty is the third in one week and the third in 2024.

It is also the seventh time the apex bank has adjusted the exchange in eight months since President Tinubu’s administration commenced the floating naira policy, a reform to stabilise the forex market.

Recall that the Customs had on June 24, 2023, adjusted the exchange rate from N422.30/$ to N589/$, and on July 6, 2023, it was adjusted to N770.88/$, on November 14, 2023, it was adjusted to N783.174/$, in December it was adjusted to N951.941/$, on February 2 it was moved to N1, 356.883/$ and on February 3, it was raised to N1, 413.62/$ and now it has been raised to N1,417.635/$.

Experts warned that the continued hike in import duty portends a rise in the prices of imported goods and services in the country.

Bisiriyu Fanu, the former chairman of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents at Seme Border, said the hike in Customs duty through high FX rates will affect all goods in the market because every commodity in the market has imported input in them.

Earlier, the Director of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Muda Yusuf, lamented that increased import duty would further impoverish Nigerians.