NAGAFF Ambushes Senior Customs Officer In Alleged Bribe At Tin Can Port

The Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has commenced a private investigation into activities of some top officers of the Nigeria Customs Service at Tin Can Island Command.
In a rare decision, the association also said it is conducting a public hearing into activities of officers who have been fingered for collecting bribe in the course of performing their duties in the port.
The NAGAFF specifically mentioned two officers in the alleged bribe-for-container release scandal.

According to the association, the officers are: Deputy Controller, Saidu Aliu of the Customs Processing Center (CPC) and an Assistant Controller of Customs identified as Zarma

According to NAGAFF, there are allegations that DC Saidu Aliu through AC Zarma collects bribe of
N500,000 and N250,000 for a 20’ of Aluminum Coil entered as 5% instead of 35% rate and Aluminum Profile of 35% entered as 5% rate. 
"According to a statement sent to Shipping Position Daily, and signed by  NAGAFF’s National Chairman Anti-Corruption & Transparency Unit, Mr Increase Uche,  the association has received several reports of extortion in the CPC which is headed by DC Aliu Saidu, the seating ASYCUDA Project Manager of the Command.

In the statement, Uche said that "It is in the public notice that since 2013 to date, freight forwarding agents have been complaining of systemic corruption in the CPC under the headship of DC Saidu Aliu."

" Areas of concern shall include but not limited to receipted expenses for rerouting of risk channels to physical examination, and/or scanning-related operations."

"Others are inherent extortion in local alerting of declaration for Customs purposes, the stoppage of duly released and exited containers at the gates, blockage of passwords of examiners unjustly and bench marking of imported goods for additional duty assessment".

The statement added that: "Towards establishing the veracity of all the allegations above, the Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit of NAGAFF is organizing a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday December 16th, 2015 at the NAGAFF headquarters”.