The leadership of the Importers Association of Nigeria, has said that its recent raid on illegal factories yielded positive result, leading to one of the affected companies paying N41m to the coffers of the federal government.
The National Coordinator of the association, Chief Obi Michael Ekwego disclosed this in a recent interview in Abuja, stressing that the exercise is to address the manipulation of bill of landing and discourage the importation of substandard, adulterated, and contraband into the country.
“I am very happy that our last raid yielded positive result as some of the affected companies have started paying their dues. Imagine, one of the Chinese companies paid N41m at Tin Can Island. They wouldn’t have paid this money if we have not done the exercise,” he said.
He also added that the joint-team of the association will embark on another monitoring exercise to ensure that the FG and Nigerians are not denied their rightful dues.
“We will continue to carry out our monitoring exercise to ensure that Nigerians and the government are not denied what belong to them.
Also, we are ensuring that substandard products are not brought into the country
“There is a company that brought in 171 containers without paying dues. We even discovered that they don’t have a factory and license to import those products.
We are going to visit there to confirm what we were told. We can’t allow people to keep taking advantages of this country,” he said.
He claimed that the company which is based in Amuwo Odofin, Lagos imports unisex footwears without paying duties to the government, adding that this is tantamount to economic sabotage.