The African Association of Professional Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (APFFLON) has kicked against alleged plans to concession the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), even as it accused four companies of perpetrating the plans.
Among the companies fingered by the association are: Boinica Technologies West Africa Ltd, Bergman Security Consultant & Supplies Ltd, Africa Finance Corporation and Huawei Ltd.
The association reiterated that the companies have been contracted and agreement is nearing completion.
It will be recalled that in a YouTube video trending online, a member representing, Orlu, Orsu and Oru East in the House of Representative, Hon Jerry Alagbaso in a plenary session last week accused these companies of planning to loot the country under the guise of digitalization and modernization of the service.
Reacting to this, the national president of APFFLON, Mr. Frank Ogunojemite, told newsmen on Wednesday in Ikeja that the move was not in the national interest, but to fulfil the selfish aims of some criminal elements who are misinforming and misleading the president.
Ogunojemite said that, in the agreement, the companies will be in charge of collecting revenue instead of the Nigeria Customs.
"We cannot afford to keep saying, grow Nigeria and hypocritically continue to concede our national assets to private and foreign firms thereby encouraging capital flight to foreign lands by selected few", he noted.
According to him, the arrangement is being treated with utmost secrecy, adding that the policy is planned to be perfected by the end of October 2019.
"It is noteworthy that this policy is treated with utmost secrecy as it is planned to be perfected by the end of this month and implemented in November 2019 to the utmost shock of the players in the aviation/maritime sector"
The APFFLON boss said that the perpetrators didn't carry the National Assembly, the ministry of finance and other relevant stakeholders along.
Ogunojemite however lauded the management of Customs led by Col Hammed Ali (rtd), saying that the service has been doing tremendously well in the area of revenue collection.
"APFFLON therefore strongly condemn this criminal conspiracy in its entirety and we call on all stakeholders, NASS journalist and all Nigerians to do the same"
"We hereby call on the National Assembly to act swiftly and effectively to atop this criminal conspiracy with immediate effect", he concluded.
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