Following the announcement by the Nigeria Customs Service that it has surpassed its 2017 revenue collection target by N10billion, a front line licensed customs agent, Mr. Lucky Amiwero has criticised the Customs, saying that they only realised the feat by imposing values and also by arm-twisting importers.
Amiwero in a chat with Shipping Position Daily yesterday noted that Nigerian customs is not acting according to laid-down conventions and procedures of the World Customs Organisation (WCO).
He said the Customs in 2017 was over-valuing cargoes imported through the ports and raising all manners of alerts just to collect more money from helpless importers. He however warned of the great implication of this on Nigerian economy.
He faulted customs procedures in Nigeria, saying that all over the world, Nigeria customs is the only one that is focusing only on revenue collection rather than facilitation of trade, development of smooth procedures and systems as practiced in other countries.
"What customs is doing, most of them are not in line with conventions, what they are doing is imposition and it needs to be addressed, what they do is to lift value of cargoes and put alerts"
"What they are doing now is enforcement job and not procedures
Our port system is very terrible.
"Presently we are having two customs commands, we have the FOU and we have the Customs command, both of them enforce the laws on the people. By doing so, they are killing our economy by so , right now a lot of people are going out of the country and moving their things out"
"The Customs system is a procedure and not an enforcement, what they are doing with valuation now is enforcement,
Whether they surpass their revenue is not the issue, nobody is talking about revenue any longer in world customs organisations, they talk about systems and procedures, and Nigerian procedure and system is faulty" he said
Meanwhile, the Customs has said that it was able to surpass it's revenue target due to several measures put in place by the Comptroller General, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd)
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