The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Juhel, a leading Nigeria pharmaceutical company, Dr Ifeanyi Okoye, has decried the targeted clampdown on South-East businesses by the Nigerian Customs Service.
Okoye, who narrated the experiences of South-East manufacturers with the Customs, on Monday at a panel session of the South East Business Roundtable and flag-off of the Light-up Nigeria Project – South East, by the Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima in Enugu State.
Okoye, on behalf of the South East business community, appealed to the federal government to ensure that imported goods coming to South East from Lagos were not subjected to undue clampdown by the NCS for no justifiable reasons other than that they are owned by an Igbo man.
“Your Excellency sir, please use your good office to ensure that goods coming to South East were not hijacked by Nigerian Customs for no justifiable reasons.
“Few weeks ago, a truck I hired to convey imported manufacturing equipments for my company was hijacked and seized for over five days by Nigerian Customs Service officers. All the papers and receipts for the equipments were shown to them yet it was seized for no reason.
“For us to retrieve the truck and equipment from them I had to pay over N200,000 because the product is meant for South East region,” he lamented.
Earlier speaking, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Niger Delta Power Holding Company Ltd, Mr Chinedu Ugbo, said the event provides an opportunity for the business community in the South-East Zone to interact with the Vice President and marked the formal launch of the South-East phase of the strategic collaboration between NDPHC and other project parties to provide steady and reliable electricity supply to industrial and business clusters across Nigeria.
Ugbo explained that the initiatives demonstrate the commitment and determination of President Tinubu’s administration, working through NDPHC, to provide reliable and sustainable solutions to the electricity challenge in the country, starting with reliable and affordable supply to industries.
He said: “The Light up Nigeria project, which is the focus of today’s event, is led by Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC). NDPHC, a government-owned company, is responsible for implementing the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) and operates a portfolio of gas thermal electricity generation assets in Nigeria. However, the optimal utilisation of these assets has been hindered by technical challenges and market constraints.
“One major challenge is the lack of sufficient transmission and distribution infrastructure to transport power from the plants. To underscore this point, just last Friday, we received the Minister of Power at our 500MW Benin (Ihovbor) Power Plant. This power plant shares the transmission facilities with Azura-Edo Power plant next door with over 460 MW. The two plants together can generate over 900MW.
“The minister witnessed first-hand the level of underutilisation of the NDPHC generation plant as a result of the transmission constraint. However, Transmission Company of Nigeria is now working assiduously towards resolving that constraint in that power plant.
“Another challenge stems from financial difficulties in the electric power sector here in Nigeria, leading to inadequate payments by distribution companies and Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading company (NBET) to generation companies like NDPHC. The huge indebtedness to the generation companies affects the ability of the generation companies to pay for gas supply leading to gas supply shortage and the resulting low generation,” he said.
