…Insists Customs should apologize to Nigerians
…Refund those who already paid the levy
Former Acting National President of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA, Dr. Kayode Farinto has said that the cancellation of import declaration made under the suspended 4 percent Free On Board, FOB levy by the management of the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS was not enough.
Farinto who disclosed this in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos on Tuesday argued that the management of the Service should have taken a step further to apologize to Nigerians for the stress and emotional trauma it made them go through during the period.
He went ahead to posit that the Service should have by now put a procedure in place to refund those who had paid the 4 percent FOB levy within the short period of its existence.
His words, “It is not out of place, I expected the management of the Nigeria Customs Service to apologize first to Nigerians for doing the right thing at the wrong time and that was not done but I want to say that it can be overlooked.
“The issue of cancelling all the capturing made during the period, that is the right thing to be done. The next thing that the customs should do is to refund those people that have paid their money back. They should have a procedure of getting back their money. It is very important and that is when you will be seen as actually feeling the pulse of the people. This has not been done.”
Farinto who is also the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Wealthy Honey Investment Limited, however, advised that the customs should embark on massive sensitization of the stakeholders on the 4 percent FOB levy before its reintroduction adding that what the Service was doing now was not sensitization.
“There must be town hall meeting, the Service must print pamphlets in line with what the Act says and it must be published on customs website, they have not done it. I hope that they should not be telling us maybe by the end of April that they want to implement this policy and we also will come out to say, you have not done enough sensitization. They should start doing that now.
On whether or not the FOB levy would be reintroduced by NCS, the former ANLCA boss said, “It is a law which has been signed by the President, nobody can stop it but you must sensitize Nigerians before you start the implementation. Because if you sensitize Nigerians, I should be able to tell my trading partner who is in China that come September, there’s a new levy that will be placed on the goods that you want to send to me. In view of this, you must factor in all this things into whatever we are doing because everything will still be transferred to the final consumer. That’s what I am saying.”
Taking the issue of sensitization of stakeholders a little further, Farinto scolded the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi for not doing enough in the area of stakeholders engagement citing the invitation extended to a few stakeholders for the pre-launch of B’Odogwu which held recently in Apapa as a practical example.
According to him, “The pre-launch event is something that should have been a town hall meeting but you are just confining it to customs officials alone. It is wrong. And that’s why I keep scoring them low in the area of collaboration.
“Ordinarily, I would have even expected the CGC to call a town hall meeting to showcase what he has, subject it to criticisms and say we are going all out into the Nigerian economy in the next ninety days. This is the thing we have and we had a pilot scheme at PTML, there will be questions from the trading community. We are aware that you experienced some glitches but we will improve on it and that’s why we want your buy in.
“But this was not done and it looks as if you are lording it over Nigerians. But then, in Nigeria, nobody cares. The most important thing to the importer is for his goods to be delivered anytime and unfortunately, the stakeholders that are supposed to look at these issues, nobody is talking and the journalists that are supposed to be doing advocacy are on item 7.”
Recall that on February 11, 2025,the NCS suspended implementation of the 4 percent charge on the FOB value of imports, six days after introducing the levy.
In a statement recently, Abdullahi Maiwada, Assistant Comptroller and National Public Relations Officer at the NCS said the measure was necessary to ensure clarity, maintain consistency, and prevent any disruptions in clearance processes.
Photo: Dr. Kayode Farinto, Managing Director/CEO, Wealthy Honey Investment Limited.
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