The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has described as disappointing comments attributed by the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd.) to the effect that the service may not abide by the federal government’s directive on ease of doing business on account of false declaration by importers and their agents.
The National President of NAGAFF, Chief Increase Uche who made the position of the association on the comments known in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos pointed out that it appeared that customs seemed not to understand what ease of doing business was all about.
According to him,”The industry critical stakeholders like us in NAGAFF see the pronouncement to portray the customs as not being proactive because we have not seen the federal government’s directive on ease of doing business different from ordinary trade facilitation tenets that is globally in place. To us, we simply see the ease of doing business reform of the federal government as a name sake to trade facilitation.
“So, for customs to make that pronouncement that they are not going to implement the ease of doing business in the ports for now, it is disappointing to some of us because we feel that the content of that document on the ease of doing business which was made known to all of us during the stakeholders’ meeting with the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority states clearly the need for transparency in the course of doing business at the ports.
“It equally emphasized on the need to create avenues for simplification of the procedures for cargo clearance vis-a-vis ensuring that containers now have goods prioritized. Then again, that customs should be the one booking for examinations.
“So, we have not seen any ambiguity in that but for the simple fact that all these years, customs seemed to lay emphasis on revenue generation without the protection of the borders. From the onset, we have been emphasizing on the need for customs to bring about reforms in their licensing regulations”.
It will be recalled that the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd.) has said that false declaration of imported cargoes by importers and their agents had made it difficult for the Service to effectively implement the ease of doing business as directed by the federal government.
Speaking to newsmen on the import of fresh 470 pump action rifles in Lagos recently, Ali noted that if the service should fast track and depend on the documents as provided by the importer of the deadly weapons, it would be unleashing terror on the people.
He said,”On the paper or the bill of lading that brought this container, which is the document that we are supposed to use for clearance, these things you can see here, this elbow plumbing plastics were the ones that were declared and then the weapons were concealed as usual.
“So, if we were to go by the document, then, we would have cleared this container under this false declaration and this is what I always say and when I say it, people begin to wonder. I said most, especially our own traders, 70% to 80% of what comes in , come under false declaration and that is why we find it difficult to effectively execute the ease if doing business because if we fast track and depend on the document, these are what we will be unleashing on our own people.
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