ASECO Chairman Wants FIRS To Replace Customs Officers At Ports

Chairman of Association Electoral Committee (ASECO) of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) AlhajiBabatundeMukaila has urged the Federal Government to withdraw officers of the Nigeria Customs Service from all seaports and airports and push them to the border posts.
Mukaila in a chat with ShippingPositionDaily yesterday also stressed the need for the President Muhammadu Buhari regime to beam its anti-corruption searchlight on the customs service because corruption still reigns supreme in the service.
He advised that customs officers should be replaced at the ports with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)‎ to perform revenue collection. He said this is the usual practice all over the world.
He argued that most officers at the ports are seating idle while the border posts across Nigeria remained porous.
The ANLCA top shot stated that customs operations is divided into two; enforcement and prevention, he however observed that over the years, customs have neglected the preventive part of their job.
"We really don't need customs officers at the seaport or airport in multitudes, the primary job of customs is to police the borders. I am of a very strong opinion that FIRS can do the job of the customs as it is done everywhere in the world. Their job would be to make sure that taxes get to government purse" 
‎"As much as the present government is fighting corruption, the Buhari regime has under-estimated the level of sharp practices and corruption in the customs service. Customs is culpable, they take bribe to allow rice to be smuggled into the country"
"At all the land borders, there is none that is not manned by Customs officers including all the leg routes, but the officers usually put the money in their pockets and allow the rice to flow in. It is only when you have a disagreement with them that they come on national TV"
"The job of customs is either to preventive or enforcement, what they are doing is just only enforcement.‎ The prevention is for them to put mechanisms in place to stop smuggling"
The ASECO Chairman also said there was need for the customs service to benchmark the duty payable on every cargo, especially vehicles.
He said that his association, ANLCA has for the past six years pushed for an acceptable benchmark on value of cargoes‎ by Customs but the service refused to do so. 
He recalled that it also took six years for ANLCA to finally get customs to password clearing licenses. He therefore argued that customs has gathered data over the years and they should be bold enough now to benchmark value of cargoes.
‎Mukaila also calls for disparity in exchange rates for various imports. According to him, luxurious goods should pay higher N309 to a dollar, while cargoes meant for local production of goods should be made to pay lesser at N197‎ per dollar.
Speaking further, he stated that "there is economic recession and yet the customs revenue is rising, this means that somebody is bleeding somewhere. The importers are down; out of ten importers you see today, eight of them are manufacturers"
"The occasional importers have faded away"
"The PAAR customs is issuing today does not agree with the duty they are issuing, people are paying through their nose and I really pity the importers that are still importing now", he added.