…Says revenue, not cargo throughput is on the surge
The immediate past Sole Administrator of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA, Otunba Abdulazeez Babatunde has said that contrary to the claims in some quarters, it is revenue rather than cargo throughput that is on the upsurge.
Mukaila who was reacting to a statement credited to Steen Knudson, Managing Director of the APM Terminal, Apapa, Lagos where he blamed the delay in empty container return to the terminal on surge on import, however, said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu through the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS had been able to collect near maximum duty collectible adding that the fact that the importers kept paying, meant that they were comfortable with it, as according to him, if there’s any other alternative, people would have started looking inward.
“I read recently where the APMT management was talking about the surge in imports. There’s nothing like a surge, we should need to pinpoint where the problems are. As a practitioner, there’s nothing like a surge because an average truck or haulage company cannot access the port more than once a week. It is not possible. So, where’s the surge coming from?
“I am disputing that statement. As much as Nigeria is import destination, I want to put it back to him that there’s nothing called a surge as far as anybody can see it in this situation. What we have is a surge in revenue generation, the capacity of the customs to collect maximum revenue.
“The cargo throughput, nobody can tell me it’s more than before. Have you been to Tincan port? The duty ten vehicles would pay before now is what one is paying now. So, if you were seeing ten thousand vehicles at Tincan before, the total duty they were paying before is what just six hundred trucks that are coming presently are paying now. So, it is revenue that is surging, not the cargo throughput”, he argued.
Mukaila who is also the Managing Director of Mickey Excellency Nigeria Limited maintained that although the NCS had made improvement in its duty collection capability, port infrastructure was nothing to write home about, as according to him, President Tinubu had not really made an impact in that area.
“The concessionaires are still the same old wine in a new bottle with this administration. They have not invested in infrastructure, I stand to be corrected. There’s no terminal operator that has re-fleet their machinery and operational capability. They kept on using what they have to earn more money.
“Inversely, as customs is making more money, the terminal operators are making more money equally. There’s a surge in their revenue too with a low cargo throughput. A forty foot at AP Moller now pay sixty thousand naira everyday. It used to be twelve thousand naira. And our government is good at giving public holidays and all those public holidays must be paid for by Nigerian shippers at the end of the holidays.
“Soft infrastructure is still an issue. Today is the 30th of May. Throughout yesterday, there was no server at the customs command, nobody can gain access to release his or her cargo whereas the terminal operators will get paid. Meanwhile, duty has been paid maximally. That’s an additional cost to the Shippers and so, you wake up this morning and you are paying one hundred and twenty thousand for no service rendered, no fault of yours.
“So, we need to look at the infrastructure and I read recently that there’s going to be a major advancement of infrastructure in the Nigerian Ports that has never happened since 1977. Which means, there’s no major advancement of critical structures in the Nigerian Ports since 1977 but revenue generation has been uninterrupted. So, I give it to the importers, the Nigerian traders and the Nigeria Customs for the collection of the taxes that they are making”, he submitted.
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