The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has charged terminal operators at the seaports to help the nation by providing scanners so as to facilitate government’s policy on the ease of doing business in the ports.
The Customs Zonal Coordinator in charge of Zone ‘A’, Assistant Comptroller General (ACG) Aminu Dahiru, made the appeal yesterday when he paid a visit to the headquarters of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) in Lagos.
He urged terminal operators at the seaports to borrow a leave from what Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) is doing at the airport by providing functional scanners for the ports.
ACG Dahiru, described the situation at the ports as laughable, adding that more attention should be given to cargoes coming into the country, than the ones going out because of the security situation of the country.
"I think terminal operators should be charged for the provision of scanners, because at the airport, if you look at the scanners they were provided by FAAN because they are the authority at the airport. We are only there to carry out our duties, these scanners at the airport are not only meant for customs operations per say.
Explaining further, he said in most of the airports in the country, there is no scanner for people coming into the country rather more attention are giving to people leaving the country.
"At Abuja airport, there is no scanner for anybody coming in, you will be subjected to manual or whatever you will call that examination. It is actually a very laughable situation that somebody who is going outside the country is being scanned properly than someone who is coming into the country”
He however promised that the scanners will soon be made available, even as he said that he is not sure if the customs will be allowed to manage it.
"To the best of my knowledge, before the end of this contract they will provide scanners, I don't know what the new arrangement is. I am yet to know whether customs will take charge of this or not, to provide procedural issues", he added.
He also charged members of NAGAFF to be more of consultants to importers in other to ensure compliance to trade laws.
According to him, with the wide experiences members of the association have gathered, it will be easier for them to advice the importers on trade laws.
"Let me also appeal to this gathering, I oversee your profession as a very important one. I don't see you as someone who will only clear goods and hand it over to the importer, because most importers cannot operate without you. So you need to be consultants, your advice will go a long way. If you bring out all your ideas, it will go a long way, so please see yourselves as consultants as well, because many traders cannot operate without you. They can call you to inquire what they need for clearing of cargoes"
In his reaction, President of NAGAFF, Chief Uche Increase said that some of the challenges the practitioners are facing are yet to be addressed by the service.
"We still see the prevalence of some of those issues we raised when we visited your office some months back. But we feel that we are all in the learning process. There is nothing difficult in getting the system to run the proper way if all of us decide to do the right thing. All the challenges we mentioned earlier have to do with who controls who; of which the implication is the incessant alerts; we have not seen any improvement on that" ,he concluded.
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