Nigerian government reveals intention to phase out cars

Through the National Vehicle Registry Policy, or VREG, the Nigerian government has revealed plans to stop the smuggling of automobiles into the nation.

VREG unifies vehicle data from multiple organizations, such as the Federal Road Safety Corps database, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Police, Vehicles Inspection Offices, and the National Central Vehicles Data.

Wale Edun, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, promised to stop car importers from evading customs duties when he spoke to attendees of the VREG Zonal Sensitization Campaign yesterday in Abuja.

“The Federal Ministry of Finance is burdened with the responsibility of managing the country’s finances and revenue streams,” he declared.

The government had to act quickly to address these problems because of the declining oil prices, the mono-economy, and revenue leaks via plugging loopholes such customs duty payment evasion.

In addition, despite Nigeria being the largest vehicle importer in Africa and having an additional 15 million vehicles operating there, there is a lack of a dynamic and centralized platform for national vehicular information.

The threats of customs duty evasion, a lack of data for the development of vehicular policies, nationwide vehicle administration for revenue leakages, vehicle theft and related crimes, difficulties enforcing traffic regulations, restricted access to credit facilities, and inadequate vehicle insurance coverage, monitoring, and evaluation had all been exacerbated by this massive vacuum.

It is noteworthy that the VREG has yielded several advantages since its inception in 2021. One such benefit is its ability to be used as a tool to reduce instances of customs duty evasion.

“At this point, VREG has been able to integrate with the important stakeholders present in a seamless manner, and these relationships have resulted in the exchange of dynamic, real-time information.”