The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has said that the non-compliant attitude of practitioners in relation to declaration of import/export goods gives the Nigerian Customs Service a serious course for concern.
The founder of NAGAFF, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam who made this known in a press release he issued in Lagos maintained that wrong description of imports for Customs declaration was in breach of Sections 46, 47 and 161 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 2004 as amended adding that the penalty thereto included but not limited to seizure of goods and prosecution of offenders in a law court even as he informed that the offender when convicted shall serve 5 years imprisonment without an option of fine.
Aniebonam emphasized that it was legitimate and lawful that under destination inspection, the declarant was at liberty to make genuine declaration for Customs purposes, irrespective of the material content of the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report as may have been uploaded to the PAAR Unit of the Customs by the consignees.
“The point herein contained is to advise practitioners to ask questions with a view to obtaining the actual content of laden containers from the importers/exporters before making declaration in the single entry document of the Customs. It is a fact that PAAR is a risk management tool and advisory document in Customs operations. In some of our interaction with the Customs administration, we did discover that the service is highly disturbed at the moment over the non-compliant attitude of practitioners. Aside from the inherent revenue risks and delays associated with clearing goods out of Customs control, the Comptroller General of Customs is not happy that practitioners are messing up Customs systems reliability and integrity. This is without prejudices to the status of PAAR in Customs administration.
“It is therefore very necessary that we must build up integrity in our operations and conduct as professionals. This development as it were if not stopped is in breach of the new order of encouraging ease of doing business in the Customs ports and border locations. We therefore wish to alert practitioners that the non-compliant posture to Customs operations may lead to additional impetus on the part of the Customs Service to enforce relevant laws in relation to Section 161 of CEMA with a view to bringing offenders to justice.
“Let us now adopt a posture that seeks to secure the safety of our clients imports and exports transactions in the Customs ports and approved border stations by being compliant to import and export regulations of the Government of Nigeria. We hereby wish to warn freight forwarders, who may have decided to become importers overnight, as third parties ownerships the consequences of untrue declaration for Customs purposes. Let us now join hands with our Government to build a greater Nigeria of our dream”.
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