Freight forwarders operating at the PTML Terminal have raised an alarm over the Nigeria Customs Service decision to stop Multipurpose Vehicles of 15 years old from coming to the terminal, describing them as contrabands.
Some of the vehicles that have so far been affected include: Sienna buses, Sheran and Ford Galaxy vehicles which are up to 15 years in their date of manufacture. Speaking with Shipping Position Daily at the terminal in Lagos yesterday, Deputy National President of NAGAFF, Ugochukwu Nnadi argued that the Nigeria Customs Service at PTML was violating the provision of the Auto Policy which according to him allows for used vehicles of fifteen years old to still be imported into the country.
Nnadi said that Sienna, Ford Galaxy and Sheran vehicles were manufactured in years 2003 and therefore falls under the 15 years period stated by the Auto Policy.
“The auto policy says that vehicles that are 15 years old should still be allowed to come into the port, from 2003 to 2018 is 15 years, so vehicles manufactured in 2003 can still come in up till 31st of March next years, but as we are here now, customs at PTML see 2003 vehicles as contraband”
“ There is what we call multipurpose vans (MPV) like Sheran, Sienna, Ford Galaxy, the manufacturers called it multipurpose van so it could be used for commercial, private or any other purpose, but customs have categorized it as private. We are not the manufacturers; the manufacturers have called it multipurpose vans, so we cannot begin to reinterpret what they have created”
“We as agents can only talk, but customs would continue to defend their positions, people would always defend their position no matter how bad what they are doing”
Also speaking with our correspondent on the development, a clearing agent; Julius Akinwale said that customs refuse to clear 15 years old vehicles that are used for commercial purposes.
When Shipping Position Daily visited the PTML Customs Command, the Public Relations Officer, Yakubu Muhammed refused to react to the allegations. He told our correspondent he was not going to respond to any inquiry.
Meanwhile, the freight forwarders have also lamented that under the Nigeria Customs Integrated System (NICIS 2) it has become extremely difficult to unbundle vehicles that are grouped together on bill of laden in order to get duties paid.
While lamenting on this, the NAGAFF chieftain, Nnadi said, “we don’t need to be going back to customs in order to pay duty on vehicles that are grouped together, we are supposed to be allowed to split it from our DTI, but now they are requesting that you must visit the CPC before you can split it and pay duty, this is something that you can unbundle from your DTI without necessarily going to the port for any human contact. This has been going on since they started the NICIS 2”.
“This particular unbundling package is really causing delays at the CPC and it is not fair, we have informed Area Controllers and even sent messages to the CGC, but he failed to do something about it, sometimes you spend two days in the CPC trying to do this task alone”, he lamented.
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