Abuja- Car dealers in Abuja on Tuesday decried the new Federal Government’s auto policy of 35 per cent tariff on used cars, saying that it would affect their businesses and revenues generated by the government.
Mr Chimezie Onuoha, the Manager of Mikanez Nigeria Limited, who deals on fairly used cars, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the 30 per cent tariff on used cars had been on since last year.
Onuoha said that if the tariff was raised to 35 per cent, their sales and other transactions would decline by the day.
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He added that majority of Nigerians would not be able to own a car due to this policy.
He said that already, many of them had been thrown out of business because of the policy.
The car dealer said that many of them that were still into the business were not able to buy more cars because the prices had risen due to the new levy.
Onuoha said that the Federal Government would lose a lot of revenues to the neighboring countries like Togo and Benin Republic because their used cars would be cheaper than that of and Nigeria.
He said that due to the policy, many Nigerians had resorted to buying Nigerian used cars as they could not afford the `Tokumbo’ ones because the new policy did not affect it.
“ You can imagine that last year I could not go home for the Christmas because of the hard times,’’ he said.
Mr Paul Gbadibo, the Managing Director of Gbadibo Motors Limited, also a dealer on fairly used cars, said that already the 30 per cent policy had reduced his sales because of the economic hardships.
Gbadibo said that the effect of the levy would be more when the government introduced another 35 per cent in April.
He said that the policy would affect both the buyers of fairly used cars and the dealers as well.
Gbadibo called on the government to, instead of increasing the levy, reduce it.
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He added that Nigeria had not started producing cars in mass and did see the reason for the policy.
Gbadibo said that demands for cars in Nigeria were high while the country could not meet the demand, noting that this would make cars costly for the buyers.
Mr Dike Okoli, the Managing Director of Dike Motors Limited, said that the policy would affect his business because demand for cars from his company would reduce due to high price.
Okoli said that due to the policy, cars that were sold at N1.2 million before now, would go for N1.6 million, adding that the difference was much.
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He added that the policy would would give Nigeria’s neighbours more advantage because their cars would be cheaper than those of Nigeria.
The Federal Government recently postponed the enforcement of a new 35 per cent tariff on used cars from Jan. 1 to April 30.
(NAN)
