The Customs Area Controller (CAC) of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Comptroller Jane Shoboiki has called on the importers and their agents to always make transparent and honest declaration of their cargoes to enable them clear their goods in record time.
Shoboiki who made this call while playing host to members of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) in her office in Lagos recently said that when one makes an honest declaration; such a person is like to take delivery of his or her goods in 24 hours or at most in 48 hours.
She said,” We are here for revenue generation, just like you said, customs has gone beyond revenue generation, of course, if you look at what happened last year, the Nigeria Customs Service generated a revenue that has not been generated before. We went over a trillion and that is something very appluadable. And therefore, we also have to do with trade facilitation, how do we go about our trade facilitation? Our stakeholders, the agents must make honest declaration; we need honest declaration to be able to facilitate trade because while you don’t have honest declaration, you have to be going round and round.
“If somebody comes with an honest declaration, I don’t see why your goods shouldn’t be out in the next 24 hours or at most 48 hours. But having talked to ourselves, we also talk to our stakeholders to be able to give us honest declaration. I think we have passed the stage of agents just going into the terminals and feel they could just pilfer goods and take a carton and run away. And that little carton that an agent is taking away, if it is something that has to do with oil servicing equipment, that little carton might be something that would pay even more than a whole container would pay, but the agent will not know. Oh! I have this air ware bill and he goes there and sees that the package was a small one and he says, I can always take this away but do you know what you are taking? You are cheating yourself, you are cheating the government.
“I believe that you should give more training, do more of the talking to your stakeholders, the agents. You people have been in the system for a long time, for those coming here daily, working here daily; you should be able to talk to them, train them, counsel them and tell them what the clearing system is all about because there is no Area Controller that will be happy to see that you are not meeting your target and that is why we try even if it means to squeeze water out of the rock to make sure that we generate revenue and meet our targets. And I am sure that you our stakeholders will be happy to see that we meet our targets”.
Earlier in his opening speech, the National President of NAGAFF, Chief Increase Uche stated that the cost of doing business in the country was so high that cargo was being diverted every day to the ports of the neighbouring countries adding that goods were being overvalued, customs valuation was getting higher and higher and Nigeria was losing business.
In his words,” We pray that through you again, let the message go to customs high command, goods are being overvalued, customs valuation is getting higher and higher, Nigeria is losing business. The cost of doing business in Nigeria now is so high that cargo is being diverted every blessed day. In fact, if you look at what is happening in Apapa today, theoretically, if you look at the interest of our neighbouring ports, you begin to see that even security in our waterways is being engineered by people now that we cannot even have a definition, we are struggling with the definition of what is a port, there is no access road, cargo is stranded at the port and there is no way to move them.
“And of course, you people should have the mindset that customs has gone beyond just collection of revenue to trade facilitation”.
Send your news, press releases/articles to info@primetimereporters.com. Also, follow us on Twitter @reportersinfo and on Facebook on facebook.com/primetimereporters or call the editor on 07030661526, 08053908817.
