The Comptroller General of Customs (CGC) Bashir Adewale Adeniyi has issued a directive to cease the practice of multiple alerts on cargoes with immediate effect.
Adeniyi made this pronouncement during a panel session at the Comptroller General’s Conference in Lagos, which ended on Friday emphasizing the Customs Service’s commitment to deploying global tools for trade to enhance trade facilitation,
The directive came in response to suggestions put forth by Mr Babatunde Mukaila, the immediate past sole administrator of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), who was part of the panellists at the event.
Mukaila had called for a one-stop shop as a means to end the issue of multiple alerts on cargoes. He said, “once we have a one-stop-shop, there is nobody that says Customs should not do their job by trying to facilitate trade and make maximum revenue, any transaction can be alerted but what we are saying is it shouldn’t be multiple alerts”.
“Where every dick and harry alerts the process, once we have a one-stop-shop, whoever is alerted will move in there transact and resolve the alert and move forward” he said.
Adeniyi thereafter called on the ACG ICT/ Modernization K I Adeola to give a deadline as to when the issue of multiple alerts can be resolved.
In response, the ACG explained that the issue of multiple alerts can be resolved within a week. Thereafter the CGC directed that multiple alerts should be resolved immediately while also given a deadline of one week.
Speaking also during the panel session, the President National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF); Chief Tochukwu Esizi called for honest declaration of cargoes among freight forwarders, this is even as he urged Customs officers to carry out their jobs with dignity and honesty.
He thanked the CGC for resuscitating the Customs conference after 13 years of its suspension. “For the first time in 12 years, freight forwarders are happy because their issue are being discussed and decisions are being taken instantly; not the ones they will say we will get back to you.
“The CGC has shown some seriousness for him to activate this conference about 13 years after it’s not an easy thing,” he said.
