In this interview with Oluyinka Onigbinde, Public Relations Officer, Tin Can Island Command of the Nigeria Customs Service; Uche Ejesieme, bares his mind on how the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has been able to strike a balance between Trade Facilitation and Revenue Generation. He also speaks on efforts of the service to prevent the Novel Covid-19 from gaining access to Nigeria through the seaport.
COVID-19: “We have placed hand sanitizers at strategic places at the terminals and offices”
Customs brokers have alleged that revenue target and trade facilitation are two parallel lines that can never meet, do you also agree that revenue target for customs is affecting trade facilitation in Nigeria?
First and foremost, we have got a target for 2020 fiscal year, but before then as a very proactive command, we have been meeting with stakeholders and even with schedule officers on how we are going to put modalities in place to ensure that we remain on top of our statutory functions.
You will agree with me that target setting in the service has always been an issue, it didn’t start under this current dispensation, and part of why I think they have been doing that is to make sure that officers are put on their toes, so as not to be complacent, particularly with regards to the core function of the service, which is revenue generation and suppression of smuggling.
And of course you cannot isolate these two functions from the core functions of the Nigeria Customs Service.
But, the only distinctive feature in regards to your question is that in Tin Can Island our emphasis is always on trade facilitation and thank God while we are doing that, we had PEBEC which is entirely on issues relating to trade facilitation, before then we had our system in place, and that system was why the past Comptrollers down to Comptroller Musa now set up deliberate layers where importers and agent could go and lay complaints on issues they are not very comfortable with, and we did this to make sure that the trade value chain becomes very seamless in terms of transactions, so that we can also increase our cargo throughput, because we also believe that once there is facilitation of trade, cargo throughput will improve and so on and so forth.
So in regards to your question that whether revenue target will affect trade facilitation? Our answer as customs officer is No, because if you go to the legal frame work of customs, you will know that revenue collection as always been a major function of the service including facilitation of trade and suppression of smuggling. So as a lead agency in the port and border stations we carry other stakeholders, regulatory and security agencies along in the value chain to make sure that everything is working fine.
Some Customs brokers have alleged that in an effort to meet the revenue target given to Customs, Customs officers slam extra charges on goods that may fall under dual classification and tagged it false declaration, just to ensure they meet their targets. What do you have to say about this?
I think this is just a figment of the imagination of the person who is alleging, because why do we have the common external tariff? It means that the essence of it is defeated, why do we have the explanatory note? And that is why once you have issues relating to dispute in trade, we have dispute resolution committee where you can come. This year alone, we have treated over 16 cases in favour of the appellant, because there is likelihood that trade dispute will occur and once you have a genuine grievance it will be resolve.
And the beauty of the committee is that, before now they were meeting once a week, but since Comptroller Musa Mba came, he directed that the committee should be meeting anytime any matter arises, these things are deliberate provisions of the service and Customs Area Controller to make sure that we don’t keep cargoes unnecessarily to incur demurrage. So if anybody is alleging that, let them come with specific cases and the committee will sit and look at it.
Don’t let us forget that there are some technicalities that some people might not understand, if it happens like that and the committee has exhausted all avenues and they are not satisfied with the result, they can escalate it to head quarter’s dispute resolution committee, asking for their tariff opinion, even at the headquarters once certain issues come up and they think is beyond their comprehension, they escalate to WCO. The WCO, is like our Supreme Court of the world, once it get to WCO they will get the tariff decision on that and it’s binding on all customs administration all over the world. So that issue is not entirely true, nobody can compel you to do what is not, otherwise if you see any case like that, bring the person to us and I can assure you that the person will get justice instantly.
Has the ban on Okada in Lagos State affected the productivity of your officers, who may find it difficult accessing the command by vehicles due to the state of the road?
Thank God for the wisdom and the resilience of the Federal Government of Nigeria, as you can see there is a massive road construction, before now it was a herculean task even before the ban of Okada came, most of us access this area on Okada because no vehicle comes here, these things are very glaring, now with the ban for us in customs, it will never be an excuse for lack of productivity.
Yes, I agree it might cause a little hindrance but it will not in any way affect our productivity, because we have held consultation with our operatives and we have advised them, even if it means trekking, that’s why we are trained physically, because they are supposed to be fit, and that’s is one of the reasons we conduct physical fitness test on our officers. So if it means you have to trek from Mile 2 to this place, for as long as you have a responsibility to go and protect in doing your legitimate job, you have to do it, so nobody has ever raised it in any of our management meetings because they know that that will not be taken as an excuse from any customs officer.
How prepared is the Command against Covid-19?
Yes, I am happy, because if you go to all of our offices, you will see hand sanitizers; as you are seeing here now, we also place them(sanitizers) at strategic places at the terminals.
We also had meeting last week; we brought health expert including our medical personnel that came and gave updates and lectures and sensitization on this novel Corona virus and we are following up, the medical team is not docile and our officers have sensitized them on some of the safety measures that they need to take. And part of what we have been able to do is to buy very large quantity of sanitizers and distributed to terminals and other places. So we are being proactive we are also praying that this kind of calamity will not befall us here in Nigeria. But we have also deployed all manners of strategy to contain that.
Do you think this will affect the revenue target of Customs?
Well, for now you know that the bulk of the consignments we get in Nigeria is from China, so I wouldn’t want to preempt for now, because I would not want to be a prophet of doom, but we are just hoping that the situation will be contained, because the bulk of the consignment that comes to Nigeria, comes from China.
For now, we are doing well revenue -wise and we hope we will continue to do well irrespective of the circumstance or whatever challenges that comes up.
But we pray that God will equip the medical scientist with the necessary medical knowledge to combat this virus.
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