Uncomfortable with the daily presence of persons at its Customs Processing Centre, the Customs Area Controller of the Tin Can Island Port command, Comptroller Austin Warikoru last week held a parley with stakeholders to identify the challenges being encountered daily in the course of processing their documents.
Shipping Position Weekly gathered that the Customs boss held the parley particularly in relation to shipping companies, the DTI café operators and the terminal operator’s role in this process of cargo clearance.
Command’s spokesman, Mr Chris Osunkwo told Shipping Position Weekly that “on several occasions, we have had cause to ask questions as to why it should be so even with government effort at sanitizing the clearance procedures. Our people have not learned to do things the way they should be done. This ASYCUDA++ system is procedural. They have provided for ways on how you can move from one point to another in the clearance process to facilitate trade and ensure that cargoes are cleared within 48 hours as recommended by the government”, he lamented, even as he stressed that shipping companies, DTI café operators and terminal operators are not helping Customs.
Osunkwo said that the stakeholders were invited to the meeting to highlight the need to comply and also listen to their defence and to insist that there is no alternative to procedural compliance.
“They must comply with the provided ASYCUDA++ procedure in cargo clearance. Where ASYCUDA says that you must use your red biro here, it must be red biro not blue or black. So the crowd you see here everyday must be reduced. We intend to make the meeting a routine one so that from time to time, we will call them to review strategies with a view to ensuring compliance and attaining 48 hour cargo clearance in the ports”.
The problem customs always has with the clearing agents is that most of then are too much in a hurry, he said, adding that “that is why I say these things are procedural and that this system has been configured”.
“You can imagine the other day they were complaining that customs always routes all containers to the red channel, but we told them that look, you don’t know how this system works. Customs has no authority to do that. It is the system that selects and puts you where you belong. If you carry a container containing calculators and you come and tell us that it is tiles, the system having studied you over time and realizing that you don’t always make honest declaration will, the system will not put you on green or blue. It will put you on red and you start complaining.
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