The Customs Area Controller (CAC), Apapa Area Command, Comptroller Willy Egbudin has said that henceforth, no officer is allowed to start examination of cargo at the terminals under his command once it is 4.pm each day.
Egbudin who disclosed this at a forum in Lagos was responding to the concern raised by an Assistant Director at the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), Mrs. Celine Ifeora over the late commencement of cargo examination by the officers of the command which she said slows down trade facilitation at the ports.
He informed that he had instructed the Customs Investigations Unit (CIU) to report any officer opening container afresh around 4.30 pm as such practice was no longer acceptable at the command.
According to him,”I have also instructed my officers that once it is 4 o’clock, they should not start any examination again so that if you allow the terminal operators to drop your container and you refused to come for examination, maybe you are waiting for the rush hour so that when it is rush hour or 4.30, you will now rush and say my container, my container, so that proper examination will not be conducted.
“We will keep on looking and I have also told the CIU to look around, that anybody opening container afresh around 4.30 or thereabout should be reported to us because we are not going to accept that.
“If you want your examination to be conducted early, come, we have said that examination starts from 10.am. This is just to give everybody time to get to the ports and also for the customs officers to be prepared and if you get here and there is no officer, you as the agent, you can react, go to the DC Terminal and say you have been waiting to see officers, am sure he will react immediately and such officer will be sanctioned. Or if it is something that they are not ready to tackle, bring it to me and I will be there to sanction that officer, it means that the officer is not ready to work and if you are not ready to work, you don’t have any reason to remain where you are”.
The customs chief maintained that most times, officers reported that when they got to the examination bays they don’t see agents and they would just be there waiting adding that some government agencies don’t even come for joint examination.
“We have said earlier that we don’t want examination to be conducted differently, maybe SON will stroll in or NAFDAC will stroll in and say we want to conduct examination on an examination that had been already conducted and if such container has been taken up, honestly, if it is for further examination, I will not accept it. And once I know that that container was dropped at a particular time and a particular agency refused to come and examination has been conducted in the presence of other agencies, that column for that agency, bring it to me, I will cross it off and the container will be released and we will not wait for him”, he said.
He therefore pleaded with all concerned with the examination of cargoes to ensure that they were at the terminal at the appropriate time as according to him,”It is very important”.
Earlier in her speech, Mrs. Celine Ifeora regretted that examination don’t start at the right time saying that recent visit by the Shippers’ Council to the examination bay revealed that customs officers don’t resume on time on their duty post while the agents were left loitering around the examination bay unable to gain entry into the bay.
She said,”We were there recently and with the permission of the CAC, we saw what happened there and we were not happy about it. I mean examination does not start at the right time, you ask the agents, why are you near here, they will say it is because customs has not come, they don’t allow us to go in.
“The customs come and you ask, Customs why were you not here at 10 o’clock? They will say even if you come here at 10 o’clock the agents will not come. So, there is a problem. I said okay, customs, some agents have said because you will not come, they will not come and you yourselves will say they will not come, these are some of the things we want to look into”.
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