Dr. Muda Yusuf, Director, CPPE

The CPPE has urged the incoming government at the centre, to make the removal of all customs checkpoints in the country and discourage the practice of intercepting duly cleared cargoes by customs men on the Nigerian roads.

 

Describing the practice as extortionist, the Centre, in a statement issued by its Director, Dr. Muda Yusuf, also called on the incoming government to  quickly do away with the existing practice of appointing non-career persons as Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service; describing it as  detrimental to professionalism and morale of career officers in the customs service.

 

 

The Centre also queried the ‘disproportionate’ focus on revenue generation by NCS, while calling for a balance between the revenue objectives and trade facilitation objectives of the Service.

 

It  also called on the incoming government to come up with a holistic policy on agriculture that will focus on the entire value chain.

 

“Due attention must be given to cost and availability of inputs, production and productivity, application of technology, logistics and marketing, processing and storage,” it stated.

 

The organization also stressed the urgent need for the incoming government to attract the nation’s youths into agriculture by using technology to ensure a transition from a subsistence farming to mechanized and commercial agriculture.

 

“Agriculture policy should cover activities in crop production, poultry, livestock and forestry. There is a tendency among policy makers to focus disproportionately on crop farming to the neglect of other segments of agriculture,” the Centre stated.

 

The group also called on the incoming government to `demonstrate unflinching commitment to the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act so as to attract more investments into the Oil and Gas Sector.

 

While calling the incoming government to remove petrol subsidy so as to free resources for other meaningful projects, it however counseled that such removal should be done with minimum shocks to the economy.