YNaija Editorial: 62.5 per cent book tariff – Killing the publishing industry to save the print


Books

But one does not need possess a doctorate degree to see the numerous holes in government’s smart Alec plan. The entire publishing industry is not isolated from the perils and pitfalls of doing business in Nigeria.

The federal government recently announced a strange new upward review of the tariff on imported books from zero to 62.5% . This value comprises a 20% import duty, a surcharge of 7%, comprehensive import supervision scheme of 0.5% and a levy plus VAT OF 35%.

This dubious decision arrives as part of government’s broad local content policy and plan to turn Nigeria into a manufacturing hub. Following a similar tariff hike in the imported automobile industry, printers/publishers under the aegis of the Manufacturing Association of Nigeria have made their own case and high level lobbying and politicking, coupled with a federal government prone to pulling the cart ahead of the horse in its genuine bid to pursue an aggressive manufacturing policy have brought us to this sad state of affairs.

For while this announcement which takes effect 2, January 2014, makes sense on paper, (the outrageous tariffs will lead to a hike in prices of imported books, which will in turn discourage market activties. Local book publishers can then step in to fill this strategic void and churn out locally printed books at competitive prices and before long, a healthy industry starts to thrive.

But one does not need possess a doctorate degree to see the numerous holes in government’s smart Alec plan. The entire publishing industry is not isolated from the perils and pitfalls of doing business in Nigeria. There is a constant and desperate unavailability of power, infrastructure and other business resources.

Nigeria is a signatory to the UNESCO agreement signed in 1950 on the importation of educational, scientific and cultural material that forbids participating countries from imposing custom duties and charges on such property to encourage education and widen socialization. This agreement does not include raw materials like printing paper, graphic materials, printing machines and even technical expertise that goes into creating a booming publishing industry.

Serious local manufactures, in pursuit of quality have learned to take their locally sourced manuscripts to Asian countries where cost of production is way cheaper, thanks to up to the minute infrastructure and after production, take advantage on the UNESCO agreement to import these finished products duty free to sell at comparable rates with other global titles. Indeed 75% of books published by Nigerian companies are printed abroad. This announcement now means that even though the cost prices of these books are about to go up by 62.5%. Thus readers who have in recent times, enjoyed the works of novelists like Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie, Toni Kan and Lola Shoneyin as well as numerous other creative writers are about to pay a lot more to service their reading culture.

This further increase in price could possibly lead to a boom for the already thriving pirates taking advantage of the system to produce cheaper but low quality material that deprives the writers and publishers of their due, further cutting into profit. It has happened in other industries like textiles where such policies were attempted

Another draw back of government’s protectionism tendencies is that Nigerian tertiary students in disciplines such as Medicine, Engineering and Pure sciences who rely on foreign produced texts for global best practices may have this unneccesary cost thrust upon them. Already expensive texts are bound to get even more expensive and this may discourage student admission into such high dependency programmes.

Parents who grew up on colourful and beautifully illustrated texts and story books may be forced to reminisce on the good old days while their wards make do with shoddily printed titles with bindings that come off easily. How are we to open the minds and imaginations of children without reading beautiful material?

What a far-reaching and deep thinking government should have done perhaps was to strip off tariffs on not just books but all forms of paper and printing material, attract  superior technical expertise that will train local publishers and printers looking in on the action. But above all, make the cost and burden of doing all these in the country at least bearable. Power is good but so are grants and subsidies that will encourage local participation. After all these have been put in place, only then can tarriffs be raised. These things have been repeated time and again, as incidences in other sectors- from agriculture to automobiles and textiles.

Why isn’t government listening?

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