The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) said on Tuesday that Nigeria had lost about N6 trillion across the different sectors to the Apapa gridlock.
NECA said at its 62nd Annual General Meeting in Lagos that there was an urgent need for policy reform for businesses to operate optimally.
Mauricio Alarcon, the Second Vice President of NECA, said that operational hiccups being experienced on the Lagos ports access roads had remained even after one year of the Presidential Executive Order to promote transparency and efficiency on operation.
”Survey by the OPS shows that Nigeria lost about N3.06 trillion on non-oil export and about N2.5 trillion earnings annually across the different sectors due to the Apapa gridlock,” he said.
Alarcon said that the Federal Government should look at reforms that would significantly impact on the economy now that the elections were over.
Alarcon also said that the government should reform the oil and gas sector by removing subsidy on the sale of petrol, which he said, gulped about one trillion naira annually.
He said that the government must urgently tackle insecurity that had already increased unemployment and poverty in the country.
‘”Unemployment surged from 9.0 per cent in 2015 to 23.1 per cent in third quarter of 2018, while inflation remains high in spite of tight monetary policy conditions.
“There is also spread of poverty. The economy need to recover,” he said.
To support business, Alarcon called on the government to ensure the patronage of made-in-Nigeria goods at all levels through standardisation and certification.
He called for friendly regulatory regime businesses rather than crippling them and enforcement of harmonised taxes and levies by the Joint Tax Board.