….soon Nigeria ‘ll have tractor assembly lines – Ekesiobi

By Gabriel Ewepu

AS food prices remain high across the country, importers of agro equipment, weekend, begged the Federal Government to declare zero-duty on agro equipment to boost food production and reduce high food prices.

The appeal was made by the Chairman, Eurobase Consult Limited, Don Ekesiobi, during a press conference held ahead of the Special Agro equipment and Technology Expo tagged ‘Sustainable food security and Agro produce export through Mechanization’ scheduled to hold on April 16 and 17 in Abuja.

According to Ekesiobi, Nigeria has the highest import duty on agro equipment in the world, which also drives away investors, hence the high cost of producing food in the country.

Therefore, he lamented the high import duty clearing agents charge to the tune of N15 million for one container with three tractors, and said it is too exorbitant for importers.    

He said: “High duty on imported agro equipment is real, and I do not know whether there is any legislation backing it. Nigeria pays the highest duty on agro equipment in the world.

“My prayer is now that the president has declared state of emergency on agriculture, my prayer is he should make it holistic, and that holistic thing should include removal of duty on anything agro-equipment at least for some time to enable Nigeria balance very well in food self-sufficiency, and make it easier for clearance of good and give 48 hours to agro equipment clearance, which should be accelerated clearing so the equipment can reach the farmers but if they insist in collecting high duty, which means the ambition of declaring food self-sufficiency will not be realized.

“Agro equipment takes a high volume of space and low value, if we ship three tractors in a container, now what the clearing agents are asking is N15 million to clear one container soothing that was N3 million about two or three years ago. If importers of tractors are to pay N15 million or N16 million how is he going to sell it/ So these are considerations the government should give immediately to make import of agro equipment into Nigeria zero-duty until we start fabrications.”      

 

However, he added that his group will also set up a tractor assembly plant in Nigeria to reduce the cost of tractors and also to ensure farmers in Nigeria have enough tractors and other agro equipment to upscale their production.

“Like I said, our group that is coming are also coming for fabrication, and very soon we will see tractors made in Nigeria, and that is one of the things they are coming to Nigeria to do, and so zero duty on agro equipment is very critical for Nigeria to reduce food cost, and the earlier they do it the better for everybody. They are going to make assembly lines and help farmers have access to farm equipment to upscale their productivity.

“Like in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, we have been working together on mechanization and trying to collaborate on tractors, and very soon our tractors will be everywhere in Nigeria.

“What Nigeria can do to achieve food sufficiency is to engage the group that is coming from the local to the federal government the nation will witness a quantum leap in agro progress, and it would develop and destroy the so-called hunger and insecurity, and Nigeria will emerge s net food exporter because they have everything in-house, and so if government engage them the problem of food will be 95 per cent solved.”

Meanwhile, he pointed out that the greatest challenge of farmers is insecurity, which he called on the Tinubu-led administration to drastically tackle to enable farmers to produce more.

“There are challenges here and there, but the most dangerous one is insecurity, and it has destroyed a lot of things in Nigeria including foreign investments. So our prayer to the Government is to do whatever they can to destroy or capture insecurity in Nigeria so the agric sector can start booming”, he added.