ABUJA: Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, has said that it will continue physical examination of cargo for now because scanners which should aid e-examination are broken down.
Acting Comptroller General of Customs, ACG, in charge of Zone “A”, Charles Edike, who disclosed this in Lagos, said that the Service has no choice but to rely on physical examination as the scanners left by the Service Providers engaged by the Federal Government to provide and maintain them were “rotten.”
The customs boss explained that the Service could not be maintained because Customs do not have standing agreement with the manufacturers of the equipment.
According to him, “You know that when Service Providers were leaving they gave us rotten scanners, the scanners were bad. Customs does not have agreement with the manufacturers, Service Providers had it and therefore Customs was unable to meet them to come and do the servicing. There is grade one, two and three. We were able to do one or two but three had to be done by the manufacturers. I must tell you that efforts are being made to get the scanners working again.”
On the acquisition of new scanners he said “the CGC is already discussing with some people and soon all of these will be sorted out.”
