Following the recent closure of the Electronic Provision Clearance Certificate (EPCC) and subsequent introduction of the SONCAP Default Certificate with its attendant penalty fees by the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), stakeholders in the Nigerian maritime industry has come out to say that the agency has grossly deviated from its original mandate.
Respondents who spoke in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos said that SON had moved from a regulatory agency to revenue generating one especially since the coming onboard of the current Acting Director-General of the agency, Dr. Paul Angya.
Speaking on the matter, the Managing Director of the Wealthy Honey Investment Limited, Dr. Kayode Farinto stated that the agency had become more confused than ever and was always in the habit of causing problems in the maritime industry thereby discouraging importers from bringing their consignments through the nation’s seaports.
Farinto opined that even to get the SONCAP certificate from SON was not an easy task as one had to get product certificate first adding that having gotten the product certificate, about to open Form M, one would be inundated with rigorous processes on logging on to the trade portal.
“When you succeed in opening Form M, maybe after one week and you get SONCAP, look at what they succeeded in subjecting importers to. SON is more confused than before and because the government in place is confused, so, I am not surprised. These people are not even competent; they don’t know what they are doing. Stopping their EPCC and you are now saying people should go and get SONCAP?
“So, whatever SON is saying, they are confuse.com, they are causing more havoc in the industry than any other organization but I do not blame them because they have the privilege of having access to the trade portal and that is why they could block entries.
“The big question is why is it that you still find substandard goods in the market? Why do we have to gloves on a weekly basis in our homes? Instead of you to go and look at our porous borders and work effectively there and see how you can manage the border, you are killing the very few ones that are bringing in their goods legitimately all in the name of selling SONCAP. I am not saying they should not get SONCAP”, he said
Farinto who is also the National Publicity Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) recalled that SON was set up to ensure that regulated products that meet international standard were allowed into the country but regretted that today, one sees a situation where they were only interested in making money noting that even when one has SONCAP, the agency still charge N7, 000 per container.
He said,” If you have 100 containers, multiply it by N7, 000 and then people that do not have SONCAP that they have given provisional release, you need to know how much they parted with. SON has failed woefully under Angya, they don’t have focus, they are more confused”.
On his part, the Chairman, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Apapa chapter, Dr. Fred Ajuzie disclosed that when he saw SON’s recent circular on the closure of EPCC platform and the amount to be paid as penalty for SONCAP default, he wondered if the law establishing the agency had been repealed by the National Assembly.
Ajuzie maintained that if the law establishing the agency was still in force, maybe there could have been an amendment since the law did not permit the agency to do most of the things they were doing presently.
According to him,” The law that set up SON did not set it up for revenue generation but now they are asking for penalty fee when they closed that EPCC platform and they now introduced import permit saying they will now charge you based on the CIF value, I don’t know where that law is coming from and it is going to cause a lot of bottlenecks in the clearing process.
“And SON is corrupt; they are collecting money even more than any Federal Government agency. SON is the worst as far as I am concerned; I will still talk more about SON because this platform is an extortionist platform they now created because you cannot tell me that you charge somebody CIF value of the goods to obtain SONCAP.
“If SON is for standard, if people bring in substandard products, let them seize the consignments and burn them, not holding a container and put it in your warehouse, after you collect N500, 000, N1 million or even more and release the goods bask to the owner and you say you are doing EPCC”.
He therefore begged SON to stop treating Nigerians as fools, extorting money from them and doing the works it was not originally mandated to do adding that what the management of the agency was doing was blackmailing everybody for them to get rich.
“SON is worse than any government agency in Nigeria”, he stressed.
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