PAAR: Customs Sack 13 Officers

• Says over 99,000 inherited RAR's clogging system
• Anxiety looms over congestion at ports
Barely a week after taking over destination inspection duties from service providers and less than a week of issuing the first Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR), the Nigeria Customs Service has acknowledged that the scheme is not working out as planned because PAAR is currently encountering major challenges.

According to the Customs, more than 99, 300 Risk Assessment Report (RAR) were transferred to the Customs by the ‘sacked’ three destination inspection service providers and this is already causing congestion in the issuance of fresh PAAR on imported goods.

Even though stakeholders have described this as a deliberate attempt by the three service providers; Cotecna, SGS and Global Scan System to truncate the efforts of the Customs in running destination inspection effectively, the Comptroller General of Customs, Dikko Inde Abdullahi yesterday issued a circular directing provisional release of the 99, 300 containers.

Addressing maritime stakeholders at the Apapa Custom Command yesterday, a high powered delegation of custom top brass led by ACG Tahir Musa took turns to update operators on the challenges facing the customs in implementing the PAAR.

Speaking at the forum, the Assistant Comptroller in charge of transition, Austen Warikoru said that the "99,000 transactions and cutovers were handed over to the Nigeria Customs Service, we are supposed to take charge of them as well as take care of fresh transactions, the process of taking care of these 99,000 is clogging the system and slowing us down"

"You are also aware that the first PAAR was generated within 58minutes of upload, but now, because of these 99,000 plus, we found out that PAARs are not coming out at the speed we anticipated and that is the reason why we are here today" Warrikoru admitted.

Also speaking, Assistant Comptroller Tahir Musa disclosed that 13 officers at the Tin Can command have been dismissed for taking advantage of the period of takeover to release certain cargoes without proper documentation and examination.

"They were about 14, but only one was re-instated at the end of the day" he disclosed.

Tahir appealed to operators to team up with the Customs to sustain the PAAR regime, according to him, all the customs demands from operators is compliance to the new guidelines.

On his part however, Assistant Comptroller in charge of Modernization and Research, Iya Abubakar alleged that some of the 99,000 RAR were mere fabrications and that some stakeholders are trying to take advantage of the situation to perpetrate illegality.

He said that some of the RAARs were generated after the Customs has already taken over from service providers.

"From Apapa, I have seen RAARs that were presented and were generated on the 2nd (of December), how did they generate it, we know it is not true but all the same, since you are complaining, management is saying that we should go ahead, but we know it is a lie, the pipe was closed on the 30th, so how did the service providers generate your own RAAR", he stressed.

While analyzing the content of the circular No. 13/2013 from the Customs Comptroller General, a copy of which was made available to Shipping Position Daily, Abubakar said that goods that have arrived on or before 30th November, 2013 with approved e-form M and processed final documents, but have not been issued the RAR should apply to the Area Controller for provisional release upon payment of duty and other necessary clearing process.

"Importers who have already processed their documents and whose RARs are pending in the banks and could not be transmitted to NICIS platform as at 30th November 2013 by the service providers are directed to access their RARs from the authorized dealer banks and commence processing of their goods", he advised.

Abubakar urged operators to take advantage of the rare opportunity and get their cargoes released as the offer lasts till 31st January 2014.

He warned that agents and importance must ensure strict compliance, even in tendering their RARs for provisional release because any under-declaration detected by the Customs will lead to seizure of the cargo and subsequent prosecution of the offender.

Other top officers at the meeting were Controller Dan Ugo, Assistant Comptroller in charge of Valuation, Ochiba Peter and the Zonal Cordinator Zone ‘A' ACG Victor Gbemudu.