The Nigeria Customs Service has said that the need to get the harmonized Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) Common External Tariff (CET) pass through legislative procedure at the National assembly as well as get the President, Muhammadu Buhari to appendage his signature on the document was one of the reasons the stakeholders could not have copies of the ECOWAS CET given to them on hard copy presently.
An Assistant Comptroller of Customs, Mr. Anthony Ayalogu who made this disclosure at the Launch of the Implementation of the ECOWAS CET in Lagos last week also said that the little corrections made with regards to inclusion of the Supplementary Protection Measure necessitated the delay in sending the document to the publisher for publication.
Ayalogu however informed that notwithstanding the previously adduced reasons for the delay in giving the stakeholders that hard copy of the document, the soft copy was available at the customs website for download by the stakeholders.
“We have sent the CET proper to the Publishers, that is those who handle the Website to publish it on the Website, I believe that by now, it should be there despite the fact that we had a little correction and so it delayed a bit.
“It also should be correct that at this stage, we should have a copy of the Common External Tariff but you will bear with me that with the inclusion of IAT (Import Adjustment Tax), the national list and the prohibition list, we need to have what is constant, what will not change. So that is why at this stage now you could not have but I believe it has been sent for publication and it will take some weeks before it gets to your hands.
“But now, we can avail you of the soft copy of this very Common External Tariff but for the hard copy, it will take some time. Remember that the hard copy needs to be signed by the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. It has to go down; it has to be passed before he signs. That is why you could not have it but we have the soft copy and you can copy it from our Website”.
