The Western Marine Command (WMC) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has expressed dissatisfaction over the high rate of wastage in its warehouse, stressing that 5,646 bags of 50kg foreign parboiled rice worth N124, 776, 600 expired while been kept at its warehouse.
The Customs Area Controller in charge of the command, Comptroller, Boyiliya Binga, who said this last week when he took newsmen to the command’s warehouse also said that the command had written to several states as well as the Customs headquarters on the need to evacuate the items.
He reiterated that some of the smuggled rice have been in the customs warehouse since 2014 and most of them have expired adding that they even pose health hazards to the officers of the Command.
The Comptroller also lamented that due to the massive seizures by the command in recent time, the warehouse is filled up with no space for newly seized goods.
The expired bags of rice were said to have been allocated to undisclosed Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, but are yet to be evacuated due to logistics problems.
Compt. Binga expressed optimism that a newly-customized Customs speedboat would soon be released to the Command to aid their operations in curbing smuggling along the creeks and waterways.
He however assured the general public that the Customs headquarters was looking into the Western Marine jetty contract which had been awarded, but the contractor abandoned the project even as he showcased a new structure built and furnished to contain three operational offices to dissipate the age-long burden of office accommodation the Command had suffered over the years.
“The dearth of operational materials such as boats and vehicles has impacted negatively on the efficiency of anti-smuggling activities in the Command. However, we have been able to repair three boats not minding the cost implication just to see that the problem of smuggling on the creeks is addressed”, he added.
The CAC also appealed to the states which were allocated items to IDPs from the Customs headquarters to speedily come to receive the items in future as it would help create space in the warehouse for more seizures.
In one of the recent seizures, the Comptroller revealed that the Command nabbed 806 loads of cannabis with Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N21,157,500 in August, 2018.
Other items at the warehouse include: 219 kegs of vegetable oil worth N2,628,000; 500 bales of cloth with DPV of N42,000,000; 42 sacks of shoes with DPV of N6,413,400, 14 sacks of clothes with DPV of N588,000.00.
The total Duty Paid Value of the seized items at the Command was N197,887,446.00.
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