Anxiety Hits Lagos Ports Over Customs New Tariff Regime

There is anxiety and palpable tension at some major ports in Lagos over what operators have described as audit system alerts emanating from the head headquarters of the Nigeria Custom Service in Abuja.

It was gathered that the alert usually come under different nomenclature such as; 'Abuja alert' 'CPC alert' 'jack alert' 'committee alert' among others.

Sources at the Tin Can Island Port yesterday told Shipping Position Daily that nerves are already stretched thing and that any moment from now, a protest between customs and freight forwarders may ensue.

Freight forwarders who spoke with our correspondent at the PTML custom command yesterday alleged that, after the valuation officer issues value to be paid on a cargo and the money has been paid, the customs still go ahead to issue alerts on the cargo, thereby subjecting the importer to another round of payments.

Our source who pleaded anonymity hinted that the executives of the freight forwarding associations have detached themselves from the complaints and that agents may take laws into their hands any moment from now.

"The chairmen may not be able to curtail it if anything happens here, we will not be held responsible because right now it is going out of hand" the source said.

"Valuation is the area we are having problems, whatever you do here, you will get headquarters alert, valuation alert, CPC alert and jack alert and you will not know which one you are facing"

It was also gathered that a meeting was held at the PTML custom command last week with the Custom Area Controller; Mr. Tajudeen Olanrewaju and all sectional heads of the command where they promised to look into the issue.

Also confirming the trend at the Tin Can Island Container Terminal (TICT) National Treasurer of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Mr. Simeon Olua the alert problem has become the topic of the day, even as he alleged that the Comptroller General of Customs, Abdullahi Nde Dikko cannot feign ignorance on the matter.

Olua told our correspondent that apart from the alerts, the assessment that should be issued to correct the valuation problem is not always issued to the agent on time.

"How can it be that in a system you will have 'headquarters alert', 'CPC alert', 'Committee alert' on almost every job there is an alert, and the greatest problem is that they don't even have sufficient officers to manage the printing of assessment for the payment"

"At TICT , only one person is handling the issue of alert and printing the assessment which is not acceptable, some of us stay five to six days in the process of printing assessment for the alert, this means you are begging government to give you assessment for u to go and pay duty"

He alleged further that it costs between N10, 000 and N20, 000 to print assessment in order to pay for the generated alerts.

However, while speaking with our correspondent in his office yesterday, the image maker of the PTML Custom Command, Mr. Steve Okonmah explained that the customs have a new valuation regime which all commands are using.

He explained that an audit system alerts is issued on a cargo from customs headquarters if the value paid on the cargo is below what the importer ought to have paid.

"By the time you go to release your job and it is lower than the new tariff regime, no matter how you punch it, it must show. When this is detected they send you back to the valuation" he clarified.

Okonmah however blamed some of the freight forwarders who usually send their apprentices to get value on their cargoes.

According to him, at the recent stakeholders meeting held at the command, the valuation of the command had explained that "most times he will tell them that what they are begging for cannot work but because it is not the owner of the job that comes, most times they give the job to their boys that begs the valuation man for anything, but by the time there is an alert, the real owner will now come"