The Managing Director, Wealthy Honey Investment Limited, Dr. Kayode Farinto has described the issuance of password to the licensed customs agents by the Nigeria Customs service (NCS) as a ruse.
Farinto who made this position known in an interview with newsmen in Lagos said that there were a lot of things wrong with the approach adopted by the service in issuing the said password to the license customs agents.
While admitting that licensed customs agents told customs’ management that they would no longer be held responsible if they weren’t protected but commencing the issuance of the password without carrying the stakeholders along was a wrong approach.
According to him,” You don’t just wake up one morning and you just shut down the DTI and people are now being milked, extorted all because they wanted to issue password. They are putting the carts before the horse and that was why I said they are confused and that is why he doesn’t have a management team. If we have gotten a management team, when we have normal stakeholders meeting, they will inform us that by next two weeks, we will be shutting down the DTI, we will tell them no, issue the password first to every agent, let them be trained. Have they been trained except the very few ones who are privileged to be IT compliant? The software customs is using, it is not easy to make declaration.
“Those DTI operators you are seeing were trained by customs because customs must do it but because they always want to cause confusion, they withdrew the DTI access and now blackmailed us that they want to give us password. How many people have been issued the password? The very few ones for your information were given a password that they are not using. They came to my office even before now, I was among the first set of people that said okay, give us password, they said I should go and buy a radio of N1 million and that I need a mast.
“Maybe you don’t know that the very few ones that has been given the password still need to go to the cybercafé, the DTI café still charge them N2, 000, the agent will now input his password to make declaration, then which password have you given me? It is just to blackmail licensed customs agents and they say they are issuing us password because DTI operators still need your password.
“Instead, they would have said that you can make your declaration through your WIFI since the port is nearer here, if I am within Apapa, Apapa port is less than 200 metre, with WIFI that is very strong, the customs mast that is here in Apapa, I should be able to get signals from here.
“I need to buy a radio of N1 million and a mast, do you know the procedure to mount a mast? You are going to get the right of way from the Airforce, you need NCC clearance because they must come for inspection before you mount the mast and even your radio, NBC will have to issue license”.
Farinto who is also the National Publicity Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Customs Agents (ANLCA) observed that whatever customs is giving licensed customs agents was merely to hoodwink them regretting that it was unfortunate that their leaders were not talking.
“Whoever has been issued a password, I stand to be corrected, let that one person come out and say, I am making my declaration from my office. So, I have taken my time to study the password they are giving us and discovered that it is a ruse”, he said.
It will be recalled that NCS recently denied the commercial Direct Trade Input (DTI) operators access to its system and commence issuance of password to licensed customs agents for the purpose of declaring their goods as a measure to safeguard the licenses of the license customs agents, an action that has since generated divergent views from the stakeholders.
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