The National President, National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Mr. Lucky Amiwero has blamed the influx of arms, ammunition, weapon of mass destruction and unwholesome products into the country on the Destination inspection Scheme which allows goods to be inspected only on arrival into the country without the outbound inspection of cargo from the point of origin.
Amiwero who stated this in a letter he addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari and copied to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and seven others all blamed the non-functionality of scanners at the ports as contributory factor to the problem.
He recalled that Nigeria practiced Destination Inspection (DI) of import which allowed goods to be imported into the country without inspection, which according to him contravened various provisions of Customs-to- Customs Standards on World Customs Organization (WCO) SAFE Framework of Standard to secure and facilitate global trade.
According to him,” Destination Inspection (DI) process of import on cargo allows the illicit cross-border movement of weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), Drugs, Arms, Ammunitions, counterfeit merchandise, hazardous waste and human trafficking as presently practiced in Nigeria, which allows goods into Nigeria without pre-screening to identify high risk goods before shipment.
“The process of non-inspection/ pre-screening of goods coming into Nigeria poses greater security risk by the influx of Arms, Ammunition, Contrabands, Narcotics, explosives (e.g., dirty bombs, and weapon of mass destruction (WMD) and unwholesome items in to the country in contravention of standard 2, 3 and 11 of the WCO SAFE framework of Standard.
“The protocol of WCO Framework of standard 2, 3 and 11 in which Nigeria is a contracting party recommends scanners as the core for inspection of goods to detects high-risk cargo on security and the facilitation tools as non-intrusive(Scanning) Inspection in other to reduce the laborious process of cargo inspection as contained in the WCO Standard 2 , 3 and 11 as stated below:
“(I) Standard 2: Cargo inspection authority: The Customs administration should have the authority to inspect cargo originating, exiting, transiting (including remaining on board) or being transshipped through a country
“(ii) Standard 3: Modern Technology in inspection equipment; Non-intrusive inspection equipment and radiation detection equipment should be available and used for conducting inspections. This equipment is necessary to inspect high-risk cargo and/ or transport conveyance quickly, without disrupting the flow of legitimate trade.
“(iii) Standard 11: Outbound Security Inspection; The Customs administration should conduct security inspection of high-risk cargo and/or transport conveyance.
“(ii) Under build Operate Owned and Transfer(BOOT) in the Ports can only scan for revenue that is against the core process of scanning as required by the global security measures, which is to identify arms, ammunition, dirty Bomb, narcotics, biological, nuclear, radiological materials, contraband, human trafficking, drugs etc.”.
While recalling that all the scanners in Nigerian Ports were transferred to Nigeria Customs Service in 2014/15, he however regretted that all of them had collapsed with the huge negative effects which according to him included; serious security threat as a result of physical/ manual inspection on Containers, which limits the function of the Customs officers to perform the selectivity on mid-level risk consignment allocated to the scanners for detection of security product and unwholesome goods and laborious Inspection without scanners that was the essential tool approved under the (DI) scheme in 2006 to facilitate and secure trade, which encouraged delays and the payment of rent and demurrage by importer/ licensed Customs Agents.
Others according to Amiwero who is also the Managing Director of Eyis Resources are; costly inspection to importer/ licensed customs agents on physical inspection without scanners, which was a Risk to the Custom officers and the agents who were strangers to the transaction due to non-availability of scanner at the Port of destination and non-inspection before shipment in line with the outbound and inbound inspection as contained in the Protocol of WCO SAFE Framework as well as the cost to the terminal operators who would redirect all allocated containers from scanning to physical examination which was double handling to Licensed Customs Agents and the terminal operators who required more space to place the container for examination and more plant to place the containers on the examination bay stretching the terminal operators for more space, plant and cost and time to the Importer/ Licensed Customs Agents.
“The scanners contracted and supply on build, operate, own and Transfer (BOOT) agreement is for post investment process as a national project under the Federal Ministry of Finance, which is supposed to be operational by the transfer clause in the contract”, he said.
He therefore harped on the urgent need for Nigeria as a contracting party to the global Multi-layered Security protocol the WCO SAFE Framework of Standard to comply by reducing the illicit cross boarder movement of unwholesome goods into the country as well as to repair the collapse scanners in the ports that was the core on security tool to reduce the influx of illicit goods in the country.
“There is the urgent need to SAFEGARD AND SECURE our nation from the influx of Arms, Ammunition, Narcotics, dirty Bomb, unwholesome items and Weapon of mass destruction (WMD) through the implementation of provision of international Cargo Security Agreement. There is the need to accommodate various pre-shipment Inspection process conducted by other government agencies such as Customs, NAFDAC, SON etc , that are involved in quality, quantity and value assessment of imported goods as practiced globally to safeguard the national security and reduce the process and cost of multiple charges.
“Urgently constitute a committee of trade procedure experts to address the short fall in the import process”, he suggested.
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