…Demands licensing of individuals as customs agents
As the agitation for the collection of the Practitioners’ Operating Fees recedes, the Concerned Accredited Freight Forwarding Associations (CAFFA) has taken their campaign to the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) demanding that the Service redefines its strategies so as to plug areas of revenue leakages.
This the group believed could be achieved by the Customs Management going back to the statutory provision in the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA)to licensing individuals who could be easily apprehended and held accountable for any revenue leakages traceable to them.
In a letter addressed to the Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Dikko Inde Abdullahi and signed by the Presidents of the four associations that make up CAFFA, a copy of which was obtained by Primetime Reporters, CAFFA argued that an individual knows that he has a lot to lose if he forfeits his or her license, so he or she would be more circumspect in trying to deprive the government of its rightful revenue.
The letter read in part,” The Customs and Excise Agents (Licensing) Regulation LN 95 of 1968 under Section 156 of the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA) has given the Nigeria Customs Service the power and authority to license corporate bodies, firms and individuals for the purpose of being an agent. For reasons best known to the authorities in the Nigeria Customs Service, they have chosen to only license corporate bodies as agents and/or what they may call self clearance by the importers. From a closer look at this step, we have come to the incontrovertible conclusion that this step is loaded with a lot of disadvantages. First corporate bodies, though known to law are prima facie not easily held accountable as it is only when a court of competent jurisdiction unveils the corporate body that anyone can know those behind them. This takes time considering the unfortunate pace of legal system in our country. So many people hide under this lacuna to perpetrate revenue stealing by indulging in criminal activities knowing fully well that it is nearly always impossible to apprehend those behind the operations of the corporate bodies so licensed.
“It is these corporate bodies that perpetrate, aid and abet criminality in our clearing process. This was made manifest in 1996 during the NON IDR scandal that exposed all these criminal acts. The government at that time under the Minister of Finance, Mr. Anthony Ani had traced those criminalities that led to the government losing huge sums in revenue to licenses issued to these corporate bodies and consequently, the government revoked them (Licenses).
“It was very difficult to hold who were the souls of these corporate bodies accountable because of the reasons given above. However, the revocation of those licenses and the “banning” of the leading Association of Licensed Agents then led to the formation of amorphous groups”.
The group while recalling that the local content Act did not allow for foreigners to take away the job that ordinarily Nigerians could perform, it further alleged that most of big time corporate bodies holding those customs licenses were usually incorporated through proxies adding that Nigerians knew unless they wanted to deceive themselves that the usual beneficiaries were the foreigners who owe no allegiance of patriotism to the nation.
It continued,” When one license is blocked or revoked, it is usually easy for owners to incorporate a new company and apply for license with the name of the new company. These are some of the reasons that the Nigeria Customs Service should now have a rethink and go back to the statutory provision in CEMA to start licensing individuals who can easily be apprehended and held accountable for any revenue leakages traceable to them. An individual knows that he has a lot to lose if he forfeits his/her license so he/she will be more circumspect in trying to deprive the government of its rightful revenue.
“It is in the public domain that most of these corporate bodies that have been licensed by the Nigeria Customs Service are owned by some Customs officers but they hide under these corporate bodies to carry out clearing jobs in the areas that they are very familiar or some other areas where their collaborators can “assist” them to operate. This we know serves as a catalyst for short-changing the government in terms of revenue collectable”.
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