15% levy: Clearing agents suspend planned strike for one week

Clearing agents under the aegis of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA)have suspended their planned strike for one week.

The strike was meant to commence on Monday, April 25.

According to NAN, Rilwan Amuni, taskforce chairman of ANLCA, announced this in a circular.

The union had, on Friday, announced plans to embark on a strike over the recently introduced 15 per cent National Automobile Commission (NAC) levy on used imported vehicles.

The levy was recently introduced by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), a decision which didn’t go down well with clearing agents in the country’s maritime sector.

The agents argued that the NAC levy is mostly meant for new vehicles, questioning the rationale behind the introduction of the duty on used vehicles.

In its latest circular, Amuni said that the “warning strike” had been put on hold due to upcoming long holidays to mark Workers’ Day and Sallah celebrations.

He said the association has postponed the planned strike action to next week after the holidays.

“Most of our colleagues are of the opinion that since we have only this week before then, we should allow members to take deliveries of pending jobs and also prepare well for a blissful holiday,” the circular reads.

“On our part, we see no big deal about this because the Nigeria Labour Congress do shelve strikes, but some unscrupulous elements want to politicise it.

“However, we are unmindful of some communique from some ‘imposters’ whose tenure as ANLCA leaders for four years had expired since April 16, claiming to now want to live up to the responsibility they never did since then.

“If they had woken up from their slumber before their expiration we wouldn’t have been where we are today.”

The circular warned these leaders not to bring politics into the issue of NAC and Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) benchmarks.