Former Chairman of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Apapa chapter, Dr. Fred Ajuzie has called the Customs Area Controller of the Apapa Customs command, Comptroller Abubakar Bashir to take some definite steps towards bring back importers who hitherto abandoned the Apapa port as a result of the attitude of the customs officers who worked there before now.
Ajuzie who stated this in an interview with newsmen in Lagos recently said that the officers that were there before now did not actually do what they were supposed to do to encourage the continual use of the port by the importers who were accustomed to the port.
He advised the Controller to bring his wealth of experience as a student of Post Clearance Audit (PCA) to bear on the present job so as to ensure that more compliant importers make use of the Apapa port for their importation which in turn would boost the revenue profile of the command.
In his word,” Controller Bash was the DC in–charge of PCA before he left and has attained the Controller status and now he is back as the Controller of Apapa. As he said in the stakeholders’ meeting, he said that he was a student of PCA; they started PCA where he served as a Secretary. As a student of PCA, there is a lot of things he has in mind to do as a person.
“For me, as a seasoned officer that he is, they should know his antecedent before they brought him to Apapa. What he is only going to do in my own view is to attract more importers because a lot of importers left Apapa because the former officers that were there were not really doing what they are supposed to do to ensure that importers use this place because you can find out that in that stakeholders’ meeting, you heard some people saying that the fast track officers in the CPC were holding their work on fast track. It is one of the areas that customs generate a lot of revenue.
“I expect him to use that avenue as a student of PCA to make more importers that are complying to use Apapa port so as to boost revenue collection because many of the fast track importers were discouraged from using the Apapa port because of the attitude of former and present fast track officers. But now that he is here and he made it very clear that whoever has issue in terms of fast track should report to him direct, we believe he should take step to woo them back”.
He continued,” Occasional importers are also trying. So he should look into containers that are going, not only on fast track but also those that are going on transire and bond so that he could be able to collect more revenue because sometimes, people that are going on fast track and transire may not be paying that high like people that clear from the port”.
On elimination of alerts, Dr. Ajuzie had this to say,” This alert of a thing has been very common this time around, there must be alert, it is something that has been there and will continue to be. There is no way you can eliminate alert”.
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