The management of the Nigeria Customs Service under the leadership of Comptroller General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, has warned officers who engage in clearing activities to desist forthwith from the illicit practice or be prepared to face the dire consequence.
The warning was handed down at the just concluded CGC conference in Abuja
to officers who are involved in customs brokerage through proxies.
The service noted with concerns that such unethical practice conflicts with the official mandate of the officers which may compromise their professional integrity.
The Area Controller of Apapa command of the Nigeria Customs Service, Comptroller Babatunde Olomu,make this revelation last week while addressing his officers on the performance of the command as well as the outcome of the 2024 CGC conference in Abuja.
According to Olomu, while appreciating his officers over the command’ s breathtaking revenue performance in 2024, disclosed that other fallout of the conference include the banning of commercial activities within customs formations and premises.
According to Olomu, such commercial activities that are rampant within the customs’ premise include Points of Sales(PoS) and sales of sundry items.
Stakeholders, especially clearing agents, have hailed the decision of the customs’ top hierarchy to ban officers from engaging in goods clearance activities.
They claimed that the practice, which they said was as old as the service itself, was common among middle and top level cadre of officers who they accused of using this illicit practice to take away juicy clearing jobs from the bonafide and registered customs licensed agents.
Dr Segun Musa, the Deputy National President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders(NAGAFF) has been vociferous against this illicit practice by customs officers.
‘ I used to know and am sure with certainty that up till now, some serving customs officer have licenses” he claimed.
” In order not to be speculative but talk with proof, the customs authority should screen all existing licenses and probably check how all licenses are issued” Dr Musa declared.
He lamented that this illicit practice by some of the officers whom he described as unscrupulous, has harmed the businesses of genuine and registered customs brokers whom he claimed have lost premium jobs and clients to these customs officers cum clearing agents.
” It is not fair to be competing with somebody who is regulating you.That is unfair and unjust.
“Most of the queries on our jobs , especially agents who are clearing high value cargo, are as a result of this development.
“As a leader in the industry, most of this category of agents have complained that regardless of the correct duty they pay and without committing any infraction, they still have problems from these set of customs officers” Musa alleged.
” That is why I have proposed at different fora that there should not be an interface, physical interaction, between agents and customs officers to promote transparency and professionalism”
Musa further advocated that a code should be assigned to licenses so that customs officers will not be able to identify the owners of the licenses or the persons doing the jobs in order to protect the agents from professional victimisation from their business rivals in uniform.
” We do no want to have physical contact again because there is a mutual suspicion and distrust between the agents and customs officers.
” We are tired of being called and labelled by customs as criminals and fraudsters” the NAGAFF chieftain asserted.
He advised that if the leadership of the customs is desirous of stamping out this illicit practice among officers, an independent body to screen all the customs licences, including how they were issued, should be inaugurated to do a diligent screening of these licenses.
According to him, if customs officers are involved in the screening exercise meant to expose officers involved in the illicit practice, the process of the screening would not be transparent as customs officers will never screen out any of their own involved in this act, especially if such officers are of senior cadre.
“As a matter of morality, all what the Customs needs to do in order to weed out this illicit practice in customs is to surrender, in the interim, the authority for issuance or renewal of practising licenses to an independent body to clean up the process ” Dr Musa declared.
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