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The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has stressed the need for the importers and their agents to imbibe the spirit of compliance in carrying out their activities at the nation’s port.
Assistant Director, Compliance Monitoring of the Council, Mrs. Celine Ifeora who made this call at a forum in Lagos also appealed to the licensed customs agents to educate their principals, the importers on the need to make correct declaration of their imports so as to avoid seizure or forfeiture of their goods to the government.
Mrs. Ifeora dismissed the notion by some importers who believed that if they declare the content of their consignments correctly, they won’t make profit describing the claim as untrue.
She recalled that the council and the Apapa Area Command of the Nigerian Customs Service agreed to jointly organize a programme where importers would be sensitized on the importance of making correct declaration insisting that both agencies should go and organize the programme as it would be of immense help.
She said,”If you look closely, you will know there are some reasons why we are here but one of the main reasons why we are here is to make sure that trade is facilitated and that our economy continue to grow so that we have a better GDP. I am sure that is why we are here.
“But one issue that I want to point out is the issue of compliance because just as he rightly said, we keep coming here for quarterly meeting and we keep repeating ourselves. If we come here and we keep repeating ourselves and we don’t see positive changes, it means that the meeting is not really yielding what it is supposed to yield.
“But what I want to emphasize on now is the issue of compliance. When we are talking of import and export, one of the major players is the shipper but we have any shipper and that does not mean that they don’t know that this meeting exist. I know that the agents, they do a good work working for their principals which is the shipper but at least shippers are supposed to be here to listen to us.
“I remember when we held the last meeting at the Nigerian Shippers’ Council with the customs, we agreed that there is the need to sensitize the shippers, we want to carry out a sensitization exercise where shippers can be tutored on the issue of correct declaration because one of the shippers told one of my colleagues, come, if you want us to declare correctly, we won’t make profit but it is not true.
“Just like the CAC has said, when you go back, educate them, it is not true. If you keep making your profit and you are not embarrassed, see, most of the shippers, they come to the Shippers Council to come and complain, to say oh! My container is being seized at the port. What do you want us to do when you wrongly declared, when you have done something that is wrong?
“So, I am still insisting CAC that that programme, we must try and organize it. We said that it is going to be a joint programme with the customs where we will now encourage you people to declare rightly”.
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