A frontline clearing agent, Alhaji Lasisi Fanu, has called on the government to start thinking of re-opening the land borders for vehicles importation, even as he said that the system for checking smuggled vehicles through the land borders is weak.
Explaining further, Fanu who said this recently in a chat with Shipping Position Daily at Seme border, said that even with the fake documents showing that the vehicles was smuggled, licensing office will still go ahead to register the vehicle.
He lamented that when the ban was initially introduced, a lot of people especially members of his association were thrown out of business, adding that they can’t estimate the number of vehicles that are being smuggled daily as they come in large number.
“Before they can discover one smuggled vehicle, about 1000 are already flying round the country undisturbed. So it is better for government to reopen it, it doesn’t stop people from bringing in their cars through the seaports”
The Seme chapter chairman of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) said that till date some vehicle smugglers still find their way to the country through the bush.
“Of course, when the ban came up they were thrown out of business and to estimate how much the government is losing we cannot know, we are stakeholders here, it is only at the point of clearance in Cotonou port that they will know that so many numbers have been cleared and are on transit to Nigeria”
“But they didn’t pass the transit point and if they don’t pass here you can’t estimate the numbers that are coming in. But they still pass here and find their way to the bush the cost implication of how much the government is losing we won’t be able to know unless we have the data of the number of vehicles that come in”
Fanu however advised the government to reopen the land borders stressing that a lot of monies are being lost by the government due to the closed borders.
“I advise the borders to be opened for vehicles importation not because our stakeholders are losing their jobs but because the government is losing revenue our system here in Nigeria is such that with the fake documents the licensing office will still register the vehicles”
He accused some officers of the Nigeria Customs Service attached to the border posts of complicity in aiding smuggling.
“Coming through here they pay the same duty as they pay in Lagos so what is the yardstick that the government is putting forward. If the government is thinking the people are smuggling through the bush that government has customs officers who can guard the roads. It is just that there is always a complicity if not it is not possible for a smuggler to just come to the border and pass without a custom officer asking for bribe”
He charged the government to sanitize its officials.
“So the Nigerian government can sanitize their own officials but it is not possible in a way because cost of leaving is too high. Even at seaports some people still evade duty they bring out their cars without duty it happens everywhere it is not limited to land borders” he concluded.
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