The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), retired Col. Hameed Ali, disclosed on Sunday that the electronic auction system introduced by the service had set him free from people’s demands to have vehicles allocated to them.
Ali made the disclosure in Abuja on Sunday.
He stated that the introduction of e-auction had reduced undue pressures on him and other management staff of the NCS by members of the public to have impounded vehicles allocated to them.
Ali, however, advised members of the public interested in the auction process to apply, describing the online bidding process as simple and transparent.
The customs boss noted that although e-auction was not done on daily basis, the NCS had always publicised it to enable interested people to participate in the process.
“The implementation of e-auction has been ongoing. We have been auctioning our vehicles electronically.
“Thanks to technology, we have developed a platform for that and it is functioning, although we don’t do it every day.
“When we collect the seized items, there are processes of getting seized items forfeited to government.
“When we go through the processes that are designed by law, we eventually get the vehicles forfeited to government.
“It is then we will now take them to the platform and ask people to bid for the vehicles.”
Ali advised interested people in the customs’ e-auction to click on: app.trade.gov.ng/eauction to apply.
He noted that types and pictures of vehicles ready for auctioning were always displayed on the site for the applicants to choose.
Meanwhile, the Customs CG said the service will commence implementation of tariff reduction on vehicles before the end of this month.
He said that the commencement of the policy followed the transmission of the directive to the NCS by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.
Recall that on Jan. 26, the customs’ boss had said that the NCS was awaiting directives from the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning on the implementation of the Act.
President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Finance Bill, 2020 into law on Dec. 31, 2020, stipulating downward review of Excise Duty on tractors and motor vehicles for transportation.
“The Act has been transmitted to us. We received the minister’s mandate this week, to start working on it, although we have to develop certain regulations and measures on how we intend to implement the law.
“We have to change our codes to fit into the new law. You know that commercial vehicles levy is the only levy that has been reduced from 35 per cent to five per cent.
“So we have to change the codes to fit into the new law and we hope we’ll finish that in two days and the minister will have to look at it and agree that yes that is what we should do.
Ali disclosed that statistics available to the service showed that about 300,000 to 400,000 vehicles coming into Nigeria first stop in Benin Republic before being smuggled into Nigeria.
He said that the reduction of duty, especially on the transport sector would make Nigeria to have strong vehicles for conveying goods and services as well as passengers.
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