The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has said that it will revisit the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) headquarters in Abuja in few days time over failure of the Management of the Service to keep its own part of the bargain during the meeting between the two bodies in Abuja recently.
The National Vice President of ANLCA, Dr. Kayode Farinto who disclosed this while addressing members of the National Executive Committee (NECOM) in a meeting held on Tuesday at the association’s national secretariat in Lagos said that the second visit had become necessary to ensure a better working condition for their members.
Farinto recalled that a delegation from the association visited the customs headquarters in Abuja where it protested the numerous customs checkpoint stationed at Area B which was not up to two kilomtetres away from the Apapa port as well as about five checkpoints stationed around Mile 2 which often conduct another examination on consignments that were already examined and duly released by officers of the service at the port while extorting them in the process.
He noted that the Service failed to keep its own part of the agreement where it promised to withdraw about three to four of those checkpoints adding that it was to the knowledge of the association that those officers still patrol and station their vehicles around the said points extorting their members and subjecting consignments duly released from the port to another examination.
He pointed out that there were many instruments of the World Customs Organization (WCO), one of which is Post Clearance Audit (PCA) which the Service would have used to its advantage to recover seemingly lost revenue rather than subjecting their members to such tortuous and inhuman treatment.
In his words,” Why am I saying so? There are too many instruments of WCO that the Nigeria Customs Service would have used in line with the international best practices. Even if a container is stolen in the port by act of commission or omission, customs can still use what is called Post Clearance Audit and one can pay that duty even after a period of five years. Section 154 and 155 of CEMA even said that agents are liable within one year period and 155 said that importers are liable within seven years. So, if you have these instruments at hand, why do you subject our members to these extortions? It is very unfortunate, it is an eyesore, it is barbaric, it will not happen in an ideal society.
“And we led a delegation to Abuja, we met the DCG and he called some Controllers. I also need to inform you that there are lot things that militate against cargo clearance in the port. There are over 252 items that need end user certificate and if you don’t get the end user certificate, you may not have access to clear them and what some agents and some importers have smartly done is to say if this commodity under HS Code X, Y, Z needs end user certificate, they will now declare any other commodity that doesn’t require end user certificate. These are the things that are killing our trade.
“The other one, we have what is called monetary policy and we have what is called fiscal policy. The CBN, about one and half years ago, rolled out forty-two items saying that they are under Forex restrictions and these items are not prohibited, meaning that an importer can bring them but when they bring in these items, because it is very difficult to open Form M through the commercial banks, what they do is either get a third party Form M or declare another thing. I made the Nigeria Customs Service to know that they are not serving the economy of this country because they are under the Ministry of Finance, the CBN does not have powers to issue restriction of Forex and we agreed as gentlemen that they should withdraw their committee and that was why the committee on third party declaration was withdrawn”.
He continued,” We are still going to Abuja because we noticed that what they promised us is not what they are doing. Out of five pick up each that are stationed both in Mile 2 and Area B, they said that they withdrew about three or four but after seventy-two hours, we noticed that some of these officers still patrol that place, extort our members, subject some consignments that have been released duly to examination. Honestly, I am angry, it is annoying, in an ideal society, we should not be witnessing this because there are too many units of the Nigeria Customs Service in the port. We have resident officers, we have enforcement officers, we have intelligence officers in the port. Tincan has more than four or five units that stop cargo declaration, they have M-Rep, they have Controller’s Squad and so on, all these things in one cargo.
” And that was why in my prediction earlier this year, I said that we are likely to lose 40% of our cargoes to the neighbouring countries, it is already manifesting because what is happening in the port now is becoming unbearable to the importers. Well, let us assume that we achieved that partially and we have a report that they have come back to the port. We are going to go back to Abuja tomorrow or next tomorrow because we have a report from our northern zone that we only succeeded in removing this committee (on third party declaration) from Zone A, that we should help them to solicit the removal the same committee from the zone”.
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