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As Christians celebrate the Easter season which marks the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANCLA), Mr. Tony Iju Nwabunike in his goodwill message has admonished Nigerians to model the excellent qualities of Jesus for economic growth.
The ANLCA President stated that Jesus has given humanity exemplary characters like love, forgiveness and commitment that can be emulated this season to contribute to the growth of the nation’s economy.
His words: “The selflessness of Jesus Christ, showing love and commitment to all by making the supreme sacrifice without expecting reward in return while also seeking forgiveness for his persecutors , even at the point of death are indeed instructive.”
“For those of us in the maritime industry, this should be a time to reflect on the very strong virtues Easter celebration comes with. Let’s increase the love for ourselves and great country Nigeria. Actions that exemplify compliance to rules like honest declarations, payment of right duty demonstrated by Jesus in tax remittance when he talked about giving to Caeser what belongs to Caeser shouldn’t depart from us.”
According to Nwabunike, sincere declarations and being law abiding will not only give the declarant and agents peace of mind, “it is also a way of contributing to national economic growth for common good. Importers and international traders should also avoid bringing things that hurts the health of consumers or inflame society such as hard drugs, arms, ammunition and unwholesome or expired consumables.I enjoin importers and agents to always pay their taxes either in the form of import duty or otherwise. Doing this is in following in the footsteps of Jesus.”
The ANCLA president urged all stakeholders to ensure the new Eto initiative achieve its set objective as the maritime industry still support other economic activities.
“If we are sincere, laudable initiatives like the electronic call up system will be implemented with ease without the observed hiccups in its implementation. Nigeria’s unemployment rate which Increased to 33.3% in last quarter 2020 from 27.1% in second quarter of last year according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), is not irreversible. More productive employment can be generated under an atmosphere of increased compliance.”
“The number of persons in the economically active or working age population (15 – 64 years of age) during the reference period of Q4, 2020 was 122,049,400 out of an estimated population of over 200 million persons. Many are active but truly not productively engaged due to possible factors like greed causing fewer persons to hold grip on common wealth while active workers are mostly underpaid,” he posited.
Meanwhile, he maintained that the maritime industry still holds the ace for supporting other economic activities and as participants in this sensitive sector, enjoining port stakeholders to make sacrifices for common good and shun lust for earthly wealth at the detriment of common good.
