The Shippers Association Lagos State has attributed the drop in the revenue collected by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) to inconsistency in government policies.
The President of the association, Rev. Jonathan Nicol, said this in an interview with newsmen in Lagos.
He urged the Federal Government to be consistent with its policy direction.
The Shippers Association Lagos State has attributed the drop in the revenue collected by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) to inconsistency in government policies.
The President of the association, Rev. Jonathan Nicol, said this in an interview with newsmen in Lagos.
He urged the Federal Government to be consistent with its policy direction.
“People are not paying duties, they don’t have the Pre- Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR), when they started Pre-Release of items in the absent of PAAR, there was a little bit improvement, then suddenly they stopped.
“Now, they are not getting PAAR to pay the duty, so revenue will continue to fall.
“Customs should please reintroduce releases of people’s consignment without the PAAR; it is not a new thing for the stakeholders that Nigerian Customs were actually doing their jobs without the PAAR regime.
“In the absence of the computer system, we should be able to manually release our goods.
“No system is perfect, every system has its own hiccups but where a system is actually affecting the revenue of a country, it has to be critically looked into.“
The Customs has recorded a sharp drop in the revenue for first quarter of 2014 when it collected N77.9 billion as against the N400 billion it was expected to collect.
Nicol said that importers did not clear cargoes out of the ports in time due to the late payment of customs duty.
He said that government’s policy on automobile importation had affected the revenue collection before it was reversed.
“The other part is automobile regime which they wanted to introduce sometime in January. Immediately that announcement was made, more than eight vessels carrying used vehicles were diverted to Cotonou, Ghana, and Togo.
“Used vehicles do come in but in trickles not as before because the importer doesn’t know what will happen to his consignment.
“If you are saying okay pay 20 per cent custom duty, 35 per cent levy, it doesn’t really make sense.
“Are you going to place the duty on the cost price or on the year of manufacture?
“If it is years of manufacture, then, of course, the duty will now be realistic because this is a second hand vehicle and the total cost of that vehicle is not even up to N100,000.
“So, the importers decided fine, if I am going to pay so much money, why don’t I go to Cotonou and of course those same cars will find their ways into this country.“
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