The Chattered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) have critcised the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) for seizing imported vehicles from their buyers on the road.
Speaking with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week, the Acting Executive Director of CILT, Mr. Paul Ndibe, advised that the government must carry out appropriate investigations on imported vehicles to ascertain the condition of the vehicle before they are registered to avoid clash, adding that once a car is registered there is no need apprehending the vehicle on the road.
He also said that the buyer of the vehicle might not know the condition of the vehicle before it was imported into the country.
“Some people will go abroad through auction and obtain some of these exotic cars that have minor accident and they will bring them into the country at fairly-reduced prices and recondition them and sell them as new ones. So the innocent buyer buys without notice, so if the car is apprehended on the road for not paying correct duty, it is also wrong”.
“So my thinking is that before those cars are registered all the evidences must be produced. Once a car is registered and is on the road there is no need to start asking how the car came into the country or whether the appropriate duties have been paid. Because the person that bought the car may not know the condition of the car and customs officers too may not know, so it becomes your word against their word. My advice is, once a car is registered, it is registered. At the point of registration that is where these investigations should be carried out”, he argued.
He also said that before a car is registered, photographs of the condition of the vehicle before it came into the country should be taken and also a photograph of the vehicle after repair should also be taken.
“Talking about the uniform duty payable on vehicles, there are different accounts on this subject matter. The customs officers on the road may not know the background of these vehicles except photographs are taken and even at that, the people that will repair the cars will not tell the buyer that the cars had accident before because some people might not like to go into accident cars. So they sell them as brand news without disclosing the nature of the cars before they were repaired” , he added.
He also said that owners of exotic cars should also be wealthy enough to pay all the duties attached to the cars instead of smuggling the vehicles though land borders.
“It is because of indiscipline in the economy, what of the value of the car, will they smuggle into the factory and pick those cars and sell the car, of course they won’t. The second thing is if such vehicles are apprehended then the owners should forfeit them, the government should seize and auction them”.
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