Comrade Chinedu Ukatu is the President of Ndigbo Amaka Progressive Markets Association, an umbrella body of major market associations in Lagos. In this chat with The Unique Model magazine, he speaks of his expectations from the incoming government. In particular, he wants the incoming government to carry traders along in policy formulation among other issues.
Excerpts:
As the president of Ndigbo Amaka Progressive Markets Association, what are your expectations from the incoming leaders as regards the trading community?
My expectations are to provide an enabling environment for the traders; my expectations are for the recognition of the traders whom I am leading for peaceful environment for business to thrive. We have been having some teething problems; we have been having a lot of challenges when it comes to trade. You can see the high cost of goods in the country. The rising inflation, so we want this incoming government to look into that. Look into the extensions of some of our ports, open more areas where we can clear our goods, look into multiple taxation, look into the clearing of goods, look into our importation, and look into all these things. These are the things that will facilitate trade and once trade is facilitated, you can see that our economy will grow because majorly, the traders contribute to the GDP of this country, I know nobody can query about that. And traders contribute to the growth of this economy, so that is my prayer and my plea for the incoming administration to look into inward.
And finally to look for a way to inculcate traders into policy-making of this nation because if traders are not there, if you bring a lawyer to say what is happening inside trade, he can only sight what is happening inside the court but he cannot tell you what is happening in the market. We want an all inclusive government where traders will be involved, where they will be carried along in policy formation. That is my plea to the incoming government.
How is scarcity of dollars affecting traders and what do you think government can do?
Without money, you cannot trade, and you know that our economy is import-driven. We import, and we import with hard currency, with the scarcity of dollars, we cannot use Naira to import. We want the government to look inwards, call the CBN and let them make policies that will make these things affordable for traders. So that we can trade, we can bring in and facilitate trade.
Presently, the association is only functioning in Lagos, what plans do you have to extend the association to other states?
We have plans! We are presently tackling short-term plans, after short-term plans, we start to extend the association to other states.