A Maritime Lawyer, Barr. Osuala Emmanuel Nwagbara has queried the relevance of the 1% Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme (CISS) still being charged by the Nigeria Customs Service to facilitate clearance of cargoes in the Nigerian ports since it had outlived its usefulness.
Nwagbara who raised this question during an interaction with the maritime journalists in Lagos on Tuesday also queried the need for the 7% surcharge that the Nigerian shippers pay which according to him was supposed to be for ports development since the ports had been concessioned out and was to be developed by the concessionaires as contained in the concession agreement.
Tracing the history of the CISS levy, Nwagbara who is also the Managing Partner of Maritime and Commercial Law Partners based in Lagos recalled that the history of CISS dated back to 1979 when Nigeria was operating the Import Inspection Scheme that was based on inspection done abroad through persons that were appointed for that purpose.
According to him,” Today, we are operating the Destination inspection Scheme, the essence of 1% CISS at that was for government to be able to pay the Inspection Agents. Today, we no longer have inspection agents, the Nigeria customs undertake the inspection of cargo itself under the Destination Inspection Scheme. That actually is not an additional responsibility, it is the responsibility that the World Customs Union, the World Customs Organization has institutionalized that customs service all over the world should be able to tie cargo to duty based on agreement, the GAP agreement of 1994 which has been domesticated under the 2003 Customs and Excise Amendment Act No. 20.
“The domestication shows that customs duty is assessed based on transaction value of the goods and other alternatives as provided for in that law sequentially. So, Nigeria Customs Service is not undertaking a new responsibility. It is not an additional responsibility of the Nigeria Customs Service.
“We have had cases in court in the past where the inspection agents went beyond their duty to begin to assess customs duty for Nigeria Customs Service and it had created a lot of law suits, they were going beyond their briefings. Nigeria Customs Service realized this and today they administer assessment of duty by themselves.
“So, what is the use of CISS charge that the Nigerian shipper pays? What is the need for the 7% surcharge that the Nigerian shippers pay which is supposed to be for port development? These and many more are some of the issues we are going to present in a more elaborate format”, Nwagbara who is also the Legal Adviser to the Shippers Association of Lagos State stated.
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