ABUJA: The House of Representatives has called on the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Services (NCS), Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (rtd.) to dismantle all road blocks set up by officers and men of the service in search of goods already brought into the country. The House asked him to deploy more personnel to the borders to check the activities of smugglers instead of harassing people on the nation’s highways. This call followed a motion brought by Hon. Temitope Olatoye, who said, “Allowing contraband goods to be smuggled into Nigeria, failure to enforce the payment of requisite duties, poor accountability of the revenue generated and preferential treatment of high net-worth individuals are responsible for the low revenue generation of the service.” Olatoye’s motion stemmed from complains of frequent harassment by officials of the service that seize goods of people, most of them innocent of the crimes they are accused of committing.
Vehicle owners who travel on the nation’s highways complain of regular harassment by officers and men of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), who allegedly extort money from them using spurious reasons. According to victims of the ugly ambush, NCS officials allegedly connive with some dubious clearing agents to create predator situation which the NCS men on the roads spring on.“Call it a sychronised action but to me it is a wicked synergy, which disregards the fact that we pay the complete duties demanded by our clearing agents,” said Babatunde Azeez, an importer of motor vehicles. Azeez, who said he almost lost his cars to these people on the highway but for his insistence that he paid all the duties and levies, saying he presented all the necessary documents and receipts. “Even at that they said I did not pay the complete duties and levies and I told them to take that up with their officers and men at the Ports in Lagos, because it was what they computed that I paid at the bank. Luckily for me, I was with the agent all the time.” They are accused of taking undue advantage of the ignorance of what duties and levies those who buy imported vehicles should pay or whether the dealers paid the complete amount in the first instance.
He said those who did not go with their agents to clear their vehicles could easily fall to the tricks of these men. “I challenge the investigating arm of the NCS to go undercover and see what their people do on the road.” Another person, Mr. Lawrence Uduak, who said he bought a car in Lagos and was driving it home to Ikot Ekpene recalled that he was accosted at Ijebu-Ode, where his documents were checked and was let go after the papers were certified okay. “But when I got to Benin City at the former Toll Gate area another set of Customs people stopped me and even with the complete papers said they must take me to their office to verify. I got to Benin at about noon and because they knew I was traveling to Akwa Ibom, they decided to delay me unduly to make me part with my money. I had to give them because I did not want to spend the night on the way,” he alleged. Also, a Lagos based motor dealer, Brass Motors, flayed the interception of its customers’ vehicles on the roads by men and officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS). The interception and seizure of the vehicles after they have been dully cleared from the nation’s seaports, according to the motor dealer, amount to double taxation.
Besides hindering the smooth flow of business, the motor dealer stated that the action of the NCS on the road is having a negative impact on the economy. An official of the firm, Mr. Yomi Shonuga told THISDAY that it was wrong for men and officers of the NCS to continue to lay siege on vehicles for which import duties have been paid when they were cleared from the nation’s seaports in line with the Federal Government clearance regime and fiscal policies. NCS, however, denied the allegations saying that its men and officials do not lay siege to vehicles that were dully cleared from the seaports. The Public Relations Officer (PRO), Federal Operations Unit (FoU), Zone A, Ikeja, Lagos, Mr. Uche Ejesieme told THISDAY that they do not intercept and seize vehicles on the roads indiscriminately. According to him, “As the intelligence arm of the service, we do everything possible to follow due diligence before we act. In some cases, we act on tip-off from informants and in most cases such tip-off are often found to be true. He made it clear that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s fight against corruption and the Comptroller General of Customs, Colonel Hammed Ali (retired) zero tolerance for corruption is a strong deterrence to any NCS officer to go out of his way to take any action not backed by the provisions of the law.
The alleged interception and seizure of vehicles on the roads among other goods by men and officers of the NCS is said to be on the rise as many importers and their agents are in a frenzy to clear their goods ahead of the Yuletide. THISDAY checks revealed that many of the importers and exporters are not leaving any stone unturned to take advantage of the high sales of goods and services that characterise this period of the year, particularly the weeks preceding the Christmas holidays and festivities. Already, the period has witnessed the seizure of more contraband than in the earlier part of the year. The Customs Area Controller (CAC), FOU, Zone A, Ikeja, Lagos, Comptroller Sani Madugu confirmed that a team led by its men and officers intercepted 679 bags of 50kg parboiled rice, 20 cartons of delta soap, 8 cartons of insecticide, 40×25 liters of vegetable oil and 39 (cartons of vegetable oil with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of five million and fifty four thousand naira (N5, 054, 000) only, in one operation. Madugu said that the team trailed the consignment to Itegbe waterside to Iyana Era, where it was offloaded into a warehouse.
He called for a re-doubled effort on the part of team leaders, in order to drive the campaign of suppression of smuggling to logical conclusion. He added that the recent seizure was made on the waters along the dangerous terrains which necessitated the encomiums showered on the team. He promised that the FOU, Zone ‘A’ would continue to maintain its leading role in anti-smuggling and that it was fully prepared to sustain the present onslaught on smugglers. He vowed to deal ruthlessly with smugglers who might want to test the will of the unit. He, however, did not say what would happen to the officers and men of the NCS who connive with clearing agents to cut corners and short-change the federal government in the collection of duties and levies.
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