Some lawyers operating in the nation’s maritime industry may have joined stakeholders calling for immediate enactment of the new Customs Service bill.
The lawyers, including a retired Deputy Comptroller General of Customs, Akintayo Ogungbemile and a USAID Consultant, and retired Assistant Comptroller General of Customs, Olu Ogunojemite who gave their views in Lagos, also emphasized the need for the National Assembly to pass the law on time.
Some lawyers operating in the nation’s maritime industry may have joined stakeholders calling for immediate enactment of the new Customs Service bill.
The lawyers, including a retired Deputy Comptroller General of Customs, Akintayo Ogungbemile and a USAID Consultant, and retired Assistant Comptroller General of Customs, Olu Ogunojemite who gave their views in Lagos, also emphasized the need for the National Assembly to pass the law on time.
The duo also frowned at the staggering billions so far frittered away as waivers this year and suggested the need to evolve an advisory committee that would regularly advise both the President and the Ministry of Finance on the veracity or otherwise of a request, before any waiver was granted.
“If the Customs service is more empowered by law to perform their tasks better, and if by such enabling environment the Service is able to generate more revenue, who do they pay it to, is it not to the President?” asked Ogungbemile, stressing that in so far as the President retains the power to hire and fire the Comptroller General of Customs, any enabling powers statutorily granted the service would only ensure that the Customs is able to perform better.
Pointing out that anyone striving to ‘protect’ Mr. President power from being shared must be self serving, the vibrant lawyer emphasized that the powers of the President was constitutionally protected, to “impose, vary or remove any import or excise duty; add to or vary any of the schedules” making direct reference to the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA) which provides exclusive and totlly overriding powers to the President, notwithstanding the provisions of the section 12 of the CEMA.
“He has the power. Nobody can contest this. But then, in exercising this power, the President also needs to bring certain things into consideration. It is imperative that who so ever is applying for waivers, if that person applies straight to the Presidency, rather than through the Comptroller General or the Ministry of Finance who must now seek the advice of the Customs service, then the President should redirect such request to the Customs Service for counsel” he posited, adding that this was presently what the developed countries were already doing to foreclose any abuse of the waiver usage; adding that the gesture also protects the President from the erroneous allegations of ‘arbitrariness’.
He maintained that while the granting of waivers by the President, whether rightly or wrongly remains lawful, the National Assembly should also see the need to protect the Presidency, from being wrongly accused, especially after the President might have been succeeded by another, from being accused of avoidable allegations of “arbitrariness”.
“If institutional template is allowed to function unencumbered, where the Customs board is allowed to play its roll, in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Finance, then there would never again be any issues of controversy, on issues relating to waivers.
He maintained that until the Ministry of Finance was compelled to seek the advice of the technical inputs of the Customs, the system may continue to grant waivers to contractors who may simply be looking for ways to maximize profit, at the expense of the masses, noting that until this was entrenched, that some people would continue to
Express misgivings with the quantum, frequency and monetary values of the sum-total of the waivers annually granted.
Speaking on the same issue, the retired ACG and current Advisor on Seme Border for West African Trade hub, Olu Ogunojemite noted that both the President and Minister of Finance were often too busy to be mindful of technical issues, a situation which may also make them vulnerable to bad advise as a result of insufficient information.
He vividly recalled an instance some years ago, where a President, in the course of granting waivers had out of insufficient information, approved also, “food under the HS Code 10”, not realizing it was simply rice; until the waiver had to be cancelled as a result of massive protest by other stakeholders when the approval was being implemented.
Urging the law makers to give their best support as a demonstration of their commitment to protect both the Presidency as well as the masses, Ogunojemite said he had seen the new draft, and he could not find any single item, word or letter that removes or limits the powers of the President.
“I think there is some misgivings in that direction. With due respect to the Honourable Minister (of Finance), I think she got certain areas wrong.by alluding to the fact that if we they have all the Deputy Comptroller Generals of the Customs, then all other members may easily become mere rubber stamps. I think this cannot be correct.
“Previously, the Service used to have eight DCGs in the Service. But today, there are just about five DCGs in the Service. In the CBN for example, I think there are four Deputy Directors there and they are all members of the Board, the same Minister went to the Senate and argued that to curtail the excesses powers of the Central Bank Governor, that there is a need for those Deputy Directors to be on the Board. Now what is the difference between four and five, in the real sense of it?” he asked, wondering why it was the same Minister was the one saying that five DCGs would be too many for the Customs.
Speaking also on the issue of waivers, he maintained that it was in the best interest of the President to allow an advisory committee to be created, to enlighten him regularly on the waiver issues, to foreclose chances of spurious requests being endorsed, adding that the President himself should set up the advisory committee.
He commended the House for passing the new bill, even as he enjoined the Senate to give the bill an accelerated attention, pointing out that the country was only lucky that there had been genuine absence of stakeholders willing to drag some of the policies of te Service to court, otherwise, most people would by now have discovered that several of the ongoing initiatives, including the use of information technology (IT), e-payments etc actally have no enabling laws fr their foundation.
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