Reps Set to Probe Customs …To summon ex-CGs Mustapha, Buba, others

The wind of probe of activities of federal government agencies is set to envelope the Nigeria Customs Service as the House of Representatives has already mandated its committee on Customs to conduct a public hearing into the Service’s operations from 2000 to date.
To give vent to the mandate, the committee was said to have written letters to all concerned including at least two former Customs Comptroller General, Alhaji Hammed Aliyu Mustapha and Mr Jacob Gyang Buba. Mustapha headed Customs between 1999 and 2004 while Buba was Customs boss until 2008.
Sources confirmed that although the House of Representatives had received petitions which alleged abuse of office against the immediate past Customs boss, Gyang Buba, it decided to spread its drag net to the period before 2004 when Mustapha held sway.
Our correspondent also confirmed that the public hearing will start as soon as the law makers are through with the passage of 2009 appropriation bill
Ahead of the forth coming public hearing, the committee has dispatched a letter to the incumbent Comptroller General, Alhaji Hamman Bello Ahmed. A copy of the letter which was signed by chairman House committee on Customs, Honourable Yakubu Dogara and which sources made available to Shipping Position Weekly revealed that the probe would cover areas such as: revenue collection since 2000 as well as allocation and how they were expended. The public hearing will  The wind of probe of
 activities of federal
 government agencies is set to envelope the Nigeria Customs Service as the House of Representatives has already mandated its committee on Customs to conduct a public hearing into the Service’s operations from 2000 to date.
To give vent to the mandate, the committee was said to have written letters to all concerned including at least two former Customs Comptroller General, Alhaji Hammed Aliyu Mustapha and Mr Jacob Gyang Buba. Mustapha headed Customs between 1999 and 2004 while Buba was Customs boss until 2008.
Sources confirmed that although the House of Representatives had received petitions which alleged abuse of office against the immediate past Customs boss, Gyang Buba, it decided to spread its drag net to the period before 2004 when Mustapha held sway.
Our correspondent also confirmed that the public hearing will start as soon as the law makers are through with the passage of 2009 appropriation bill
Ahead of the forth coming public hearing, the committee has dispatched a letter to the incumbent Comptroller General, Alhaji Hamman Bello Ahmed. A copy of the letter which was signed by chairman House committee on Customs, Honourable Yakubu Dogara and which sources made available to Shipping Position Weekly revealed that the probe would cover areas such as: revenue collection since 2000 as well as allocation and how they were expended.
The public hearing will also dig into records of all seizures which the service has made since year 2000 as well as volume of overtime cargoes and how they were disposed of, in addition to records of all beneficiaries of temporary importation and waivers granted.
The seven-page letter to the Customs boss however disclosed that the action of the committee was in response to the September 11, 2008 resolution of the House and the subsequent directive that the committee should proceed with the public hearing.
Confirming the development to Shipping Position Weekly, the clerk of the House committee on Customs, Mr Jide Funmilayo explained that contrary to insinuations that the committee had abandoned the probe, it was still going ahead with it and that all those to appear before it are being notified.
Asked if the probe will affect Alhaji Mustapha, he replied “he and others will be summoned”, even as he added that the essence of the legislature’s action is to make the Nigeria Customs Service to perform better.
“The way the Customs is being run is not good at all, what the House of Representatives is doing is to ensure that the nation derives maximum benefits from its Customs service”, he explained.