The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has alleged that the tax relief granted the construction company awarded the contract to reconstruct the dilapidated Oshodi-Apapa expressway; AG Dangote in lieu of outright payment of the contract sum by the federal government is an act of corruption.
The National Vice President of ANLCA, Dr. Kayode Farinto who made this allegation in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos said that the mere directive to the company to recoup the amount of money it expended in reconstructing the road through tax relief without mechanism put in place to quantify the amount so expended on the road by the company so as to determine commensurate tax relief was done in bad faith.
Farinto argued that the contract award and the mode of repayment was something that was supposed to go through the National Assembly but the executive just muddle up the contract all because the road was in a state of emergency.
“They have actually given Dangote the go ahead to do that road and it is not as if government is giving Dangote money, go and do it and you recoup back your money through tax relief. How do you quantify that? It is still act of corruption. If Dangote tells you that he has invested over N200 billion on that road and they are giving him tax relief in that sum, how do you measure it? Who is checkmating him? Who actually signed the tax relief? What are the conditions for the tax relief? How much is involved in the tax relief? What is the cost of constructing Tincan-Mile 2 road? Has anybody told us that?
“The contract award and the mode of repayment is something that is supposed to go through the National Assembly. But the executive will just muddle up anything all because they know that we are in a state of emergency”, he said.
On the calls in some quarters that cargoes meant for the Lagos ports should be diverted the eastern ports in order to decongest the ports in Lagos, Farinto who is also the Managing Director of Wealthy Honey Investment Limited argued that that was not the solution to the problem following insecurity in the Niger-Delta region and lack of big markets in the area for importers to market their imports like it was in Lagos.
He continued,” There was even a time the Nigerian Ports Authority made it attractive that if you bring your consignment to eastern ports, you pay less freight, but the reason why importers are bringing their consignments to Lagos is that they have the markets readily available in Lagos and if you take these consignments to the eastern ports, you will still need to transport them back to Lagos and you can only do that where you have the multi-modal transport system functioning.
“It still boils down to say that if government wants us to take all our consignments to the eastern ports, government must do the needful, if not, if you are in their shoes, you too will bring your consignments where you already have a market”.
On the automation of the ports, he contended that it was a long term project which required that before the port is automated, government must first of all define what constituted the port area.
In his words,” If you don’t know where the port area is, you are making a mistake. By the virtue of the Act that established the Nigerian Ports Authority, up to Mile 2 and Ijora are considered port area and should be controlled by the Nigerian Ports Authority but it is being taken over by hoodlums. It means that Area B Police Station is even supposed to be vacated out of that area because it is a port area.
“But because they have distorted the port master plan, we may not be able to enjoy automation of ports because in our recommendation, we are not in compliance with what is happening in the whole world. We are not supposed to have fences in our ports again, what we are supposed to have is geo-fencing, but do you do geo-fencing now when people are actually leaving in Apapa? When people can just disconnect any wire because most of the geo-fencing are electrified so that you can be electrocuted if you don’t have access to the port.
“The only thing now that I can say is working is the Nigerian Customs Service through their NICIS have been able to give us a one stop shop and except we have that one they call single window interface, we might not say we have automated. We have not really automated the ports, what we have is a situation where everybody has its own by the virtue of standard operating procedure”.
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