The Nigeria Customs Service recently explained why the Pre-Arrival Assessment report (PAAR) was not yet a final document for customs clearing as envisaged during the conecption of the instrument.
Speaking in a television programme monitored by Primetime Reporters, the Customs Area Controller (CAC), Apapa Area Command, Mr. Eporwei Charles Edike stated that it was so because the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastracture was still outside the control of the service.
Edike added that the moment the PAAR was added to a well structure ICT infrastructure, only then would it become a final document for customs clearing.
According to him,” te infrastructure or the tools are outside the control of the Nigeria Customs Service and that is why PAAR is not yet to be a final cargo clearance instrument. If PAAR is added to an efficient and well structured, sustained ICT infrastructure, then PAAR is as good as a final, unquestionable document for customs clearing of goods”.
He disclosed that the Valuatin aspect of cargo clearance had been resolved and that invoices that did not conform with the World trade Organization (WTO) Valuation or transaction value process was tackled and finally resoved at the Abuja PAAR rulling centre such that once the value of an item is apparaised, it becomes final.
Edike who was on the programme alonside the duo of the National President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Prince OlayiwolaShittu and Mr. Jonh Aluya of the Nigerian Shippers Council also identified the attitude of the importers who under declare their imports to short change the government as part of the challenges facing the smooth running of PAAR.
“The only problem with PAAR issued has to do with the integrity of the importer who says he has a particular item on the document only for the cargo to read something else after physical examination”, he said.
The CAC maintained that or this trend to be resolved and also to make PAAR a final document, there was the need to include an unassailable photograph of the imported item such that the classification opinion of such imports becomes sacrosanct.
This one more step according to him was required by the customs authorities for PAAR to attain a status of a final import clearing document.
While attesting to the fact that PAAR was the only way for trade facilitation and enhanced revenue collection in Nigeria, he urged the stakeholders to cooperate with the service assuring that with all the current hiccups being witnessed tackled, trade would be facilitated to the delight of the trading public in the country.
