The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has accused two banks; Zenith Bank and Diamond Bank of demanding a bribe of N10,000 from clearing agents before their Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) can be processed and transmitted to the Nigeria Customs Service.
This allegation was raised by a member of the association; Mr Farinto Kayode at the expanded general meeting of the association in Lagos on Tuesday.
The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has accused two banks; Zenith Bank and Diamond Bank of demanding a bribe of N10,000 from clearing agents before their Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) can be processed and transmitted to the Nigeria Customs Service.
This allegation was raised by a member of the association; Mr Farinto Kayode at the expanded general meeting of the association in Lagos on Tuesday.
Farinto equally accused executives of ANLCA at the Tin Can Chapter of conniving with the management of Nigeria Customs Service to promote unfriendly policies at the chapter, albeit to the detriment of the generality of all members.
He fingered the Tin Can Island Customs command for allegedly disobeying the directive of the Customs Comptroller General; Alhaji Dikko Inde Abdullahi that all Query and Amendment Unit at every command should be scrapped while all post-modification about PAAR should be treated by valuation unit.
The ANLCA top man alleged that Customs officers at Tin Can Command have failed to implement the directive and that it is still using the department to extort money from freight forwarders.
"Our problem is our various chairmen and executives, they are not doing their job, this law is being obeyed only in Apapa, at Tin Can they are still using query and amendment to extort our members, the annoying part is that it is even our executives that are collecting money to say they are re-routing PAAR, you can re-route PAAR, but why must you reroute your document to the tune of N40,000", he told the meeting.
"Our executives have failed us at the various chapters" Farinto alleged.
He explained that before the PAAR is issued at all, it is the bank that uploads the major document to Customs server, but that the document can remain at the bank forever if the owner fails to pay the bribe of N10, 000.
"Two banks are collecting money from our members, if you don't give them this money, they will not upload your documents; Zenith and Diamond Bank, it is unfortunate that I don't have the power I would have written them off"
"They collect N10,000 to upload your document, most of the time, when you think your document has been uploaded, it is still in the bank and the customs takes the blame" he lamented.
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