A freight forwarder; Mr Osita Nnam Benjamin has lamented alleged high cost of clearing vehicles at Kirikiri Lighter Terminal in Apapa, Lagos.
Benjamin, who said this in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in his office at KLT last week, however lauded clearing agents at the terminal, saying that even though the cost of clearance is high, they still comply with the rules and regulations guiding operations at the terminal.
He maintained that there is increase collaboration between the agents at the terminal and the customs attached to the terminal, adding that although the cost of clearing vehicles at the terminal is on the high side.
“I will say vehicle importation this year at this command is okay, we don’t have many issues here because of high rate of compliance among Customs officers and freight forwarders which has ensured trade facilitation. Although, the costs of clearing vehicles is high, sometimes you have some imported damaged vehicles here and Releasing Officer (RO) will tell you that unless the accident affects the chassis or it affects the airbag. If those two things didn’t happen in a vehicle, they won’t see the vehicle as a damaged vehicle and they will still give you the value which other vehicles that are not damaged will pay forgetting that the vehicles must still go through some repairs before you make use of it”, he told our correspondent.
Benjamin explained that agents at the terminal have decided to come together and work for the progress of the nation, even as he complained that there are lots of discrepancies on duties payable on vehicles at the terminal.
However, he explained that what it costs to clear a vehicle at ‘Classic bonded terminal’ closer to KLT is different from what it costs to clear the same vehicle at KLT.
“There are lot of price discrepancies in vehicle clearance here, it varies in some vehicles, there are some vehicles that customs for example will give you N800, 000 as value, but when you go to PTML, you will be told that they are paying N600, 000. The discrepancy is what I don’t know, it is customs problems; I call it their problems because customs is supposed to be the same thing everywhere. They supposed to have uniform price of any vehicle, it should be the same anywhere. You can go to Classic bonded terminal, a vehicle they give you N500,000 as basic duty goes for N700, 000 here, so it’s just customs”
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