The House of Representatives Committee on Customs on Tuesday gave the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) two weeks to reduce its 18 cargo clearing stages to four in order to decongest the nation’s ports.
The committee, which passed the resolution after an interactive session with stakeholders in Abuja, insisted that the Comptroller General of Customs (CG), Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) should appear in person to explain the processes.
The Chairman of the committee, Hon. Leke Abejide, said that the process should be limited to the offices of the Comptroller Area Commander (CAC), Deputy Comptroller Revenue (DCR), Officer in Charge of Bond and then Gate and that other stages should be removed to allow for smoother operations the ports.
The lawmaker said: “Once it gets to the CAC, the CAC should minute it directly to the Deputy Comptroller Revenue, from there, it goes to Officer in Charge of Bond and then to the Gate for the exit.
“We have to do something about this, let us bring down these procedures to four stages; somebody is getting revenue illegally, but if we do this, we will cut away all these illegalities and the revenue goes to the government”, Hon. Abejide added.
He maintained that the committee would not work on the Custom’s 2022 budget if provisions were not made to fix all the scanners in the ports.
This is even as the lawmaker noted that the government had invested over $420 million on the scanners, stressing that the committee will not allow such investment to be wasted.
In her remarks, the Deputy Comptroller, Tariff and Trade, Mrs. Talatu Isah, said that there was a need to investigate the matter before taking action, saying that the procedure should not be that cumbersome.
While explaining to the lawmakers that the Service is working hard to ensure ease of doing business in the country and security by ensuring only approved goods are allowed to be imported into the country, the Customs officer said that any dealer subjected to a cumbersome procedure to clear merchandise should report to the Comptroller Area Commander.
Earlier, the acting Managing Director, Nigerian Port Authority, Mr. Mohammed Bello-Koko, had pointed out that Customs had multiple units within the same port that were making the clearing process in any of the ports cumbersome.
He said: “After Customs finishes 100 percent examination, just when you think it is over, you load your container, you now find another Custom checkpoint within the same port.
“In the name of Federal Strike force or something and they leave the truck there for 30 minutes to one hour causing a lot of problems.
“And when you go out again, you find another Customs person and that is why Nigeria has lost the transit cargo market; what we now have is captive cargo, even some of the captive cargo is going somewhere else because of the cumbersome way things are done”, the NPA boss added.
Bello-Koko said that some cargoes that should have gone to Niger and other countries through Nigeria went through other countries owing to multiple Customs and police checkpoints between the country and Niger.
Also, the Managing Director, Inland Container Nigeria Ltd, Mallam Ismail Yussuf, explained that there were too many tables through which documents were processed before cargoes go out of the ports and canvassed the need to reduce processes to the barest minimum.
The inland container management expert pointed out that if the service scanners were activated at the ports and the electronic clearing system is well deployed, the stages should not be more than three,, adding that because Customs often changed procedures without prior notification of stakeholders, trying to adjust to such instant changes usually cause delays.
