• Saves Nigeria N36.9Billion CISS
• Receives 201, 320 PAAR Applications
About one year after it kicked-off the implementation of the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) the Nigeria Customs Service yesterday gave itself pass mark, saying it has so far recorded increased revenue to the tune of N950.1billion and saved the government a whooping N36.9billion from the Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme (CISS), which ordinarily would have accrued to destination inspection service providers.
• Saves Nigeria N36.9Billion CISS
• Receives 201, 320 PAAR Applications
About one year after it kicked-off the implementation of the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) the Nigeria Customs Service yesterday gave itself pass mark, saying it has so far recorded increased revenue to the tune of N950.1billion and saved the government a whooping N36.9billion from the Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme (CISS), which ordinarily would have accrued to destination inspection service providers.
Controller of the Apapa Command of the Nigeria Customs, Mr. Charles Edike revealed these facts while speaking at the inauguration of the New Executive Council of the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN) in Apapa, Lagos, yesterday.
Edike who was delivering a paper titled 'The Effect of the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) on the Nigerian Economy' said that so far, customs have received a total of 201,320 request for PAAR, out of which 14,259 were rejected and about 188, 424 were finally registered.
According to him, 108,159.000 PAAR were uplifted with a total CIF of N5.6trillion.
Edike said that these achievements were recorded irrespective of the teething problems and challenges experienced at the commencement of the PAAR scheme. He disclosed that at the take-over of PAAR, the service providers left behind 99,000 applications that were not treated.
Edike said that one of the benefits of PAAR is that it has made it easier and cheaper to do business at Nigerian ports and that there has also been an increase in revenue.
He added that the implementation of the customs PAAR has become a model that is now being copied by other countries of the world.
Speaking further, he said: "As at the end of last month, we had made N950.1billion as against the N769.3billion in the corresponding year, this means there was an increase of 23.4%"
"Also within this period, we had also saved the CISS that was hitherto paid to foreigners who do not really love us, or not really love us than they love themselves, we have been able to save N36.9billion for Nigerian government"
"There is no doubt that the world has acknowledged Nigeria, and Nigerians should be proud that at least in this area of PAAR, Nigeria has become a force to reckon with" Edike said.
The customs boss noted that PAAR has reduced the bottleneck and clog hitherto experienced in the wheel of legitimate trade in Nigeria.
He however lamented that the biggest challenge of the scheme has been lack of compliance by importers, coupled with failure in technology which has frequently led to breakdown in the server of the customs.
He observed that even though the PAAR is all about making declarations before consignments arrive in Nigeria, many importers still wait for their cargoes to arrive at the ports before making efforts to clear them.
Some of the frequent errors committed by importers and their agents includes; not putting the name of the imported items in the invoice and not stating the quantity of the items.
Others include: wrong declaration of items, using of bill of laden number that has already been utilized, conflicting import and export names.
Edike said that values of cargoes are increased because of wrong declaration and lack of transparency.
Discussion about this post