The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has decried the continued elongation of border closure by the Federal Government, stating that situation in the business community is becoming unbearable in the South West region of the country.
According to the Director-General of LCCI, Mr Muda Yusuf, in a statement issued at the weekend following the extension of the border closure to January 31st, 2020: “The attention of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry [LCCI] has been drawn to the extension of the border closure till 31st January 2020. The Chamber appreciates the concern of government regarding security and economic sabotage which informed the closure in the first place. But the demands of sacrifice imposed on business and the citizens by the border closure is disproportionate and becoming unbearable.
“The effect is perhaps more pronounced in the southwestern part of the country being the financial and commercial hub of the country and the subregion. The continued closure has the following unintended consequences
“Complete shut down of cross border trade [imports and exports] between Nigeria business and their counterparts in the west subregion. This has grave consequences for investments and jobs. Many industries have invested in products registered under the Ecowas Trade Liberalization scheme [ETLS]. These are investors whose business models were anchored on market opportunities in the ECOWAS. These investments have been completely disrupted and dislocated.
“Majority of the victims of the border closure are small businesses, most of them in the informal sector. Their means of livelihood has been put in great jeopardy. This class of traders do not have the capacity to move their products by sea because of the modest scale of their operations.
_____
Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng
Copyright 2019 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant source.
