Six months after the Nigeria Customs Service took over the management of the Destination Inspection scheme from three private sector service providers, importers and customs agents are still complaining about unexpected high duties.
The hike in duty levies is said to arise during the processing of the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report, a document which helps to hasten the clearing of cargo when it arrives at the ports.
Some clearing agents attributed the development to the drive by the customs to generate revenue.
An agent, Mr. David Pius, said, “It is naturally expected that challenges come with every new system. For the NCS since they took over the DI scheme, their challenges are in the area of human capacity, information communication technology and infrastructure.
“One of the first things that I noticed was the time lag used for processing the PAAR. As opposed to when it was being handled by the appointed service providers, it takes the NCS more than a month to issue a PAAR.
“By the time you get the document, your goods would have already arrived and would be accumulating demurrage at the port. If you are unlucky, the demurrage might end up costing more than the real value of the goods.
“I had a personal experience where I had to pay a demurrage of N2m for a one by 40 feet container because of the delay by the NCS in issuing PAAR. All these will eventually translate into inflation because the importer must make his profit.”
A maritime consultant and Chief Executive Officer, Oceablocks Limited, Mr. Oluwole Awonuga, also said the PAAR processing was causing a lot of delay in the clearing of goods at the ports.
He said, “For over one month, some people may still be processing their PAAR. Many importers would have done the calculation of what it would cost them to clear their goods at the port.”
Awonuga recommended the decentralisation of the PAAR processing.
He said, “In each of the customs zone, there is an assistant control general as the head. The zone can verify the value of my goods based on the invoice submitted. What the PAAR does is just to calculate the value. Once they approve what is in the invoice, I can calculate the value myself based on what is on the invoice. It is not when people have imported based on their calculation that you will come up with a report of low value. That means they have to pay more. That is one of the reasons for the congestion at the ports. Most importers are not prepared for the value they are being given.”
In an attempt to address the problem, The PUNCH gathered that the Tincan Customs recently set up a committee to handle all the complaints. Affected agents were advised to put their complaints in writing and forward them to the NCS through their banks.
But Pius said it was taking too long. “The question is how long will it take the committee to resolve the problem? While you are waiting for them, demurrage is accruing at the ports. Instead of waiting, we just pay the duty and clear our goods,” he said.
Another agent, Mr. Mike Okorie, also accused the customs of prolonging the period of clearing cargo by issuing an alert to them midway into the PAAR processing.
He said, “There is this thing they do after your goods must have been examined at the terminal. By the time you are on your way to the ports to get your goods, the Customs Processing Centre will issue an alert on your goods that they have been undervalued. Once that alert has been issued, you can no longer take possession of your goods. You will then have to go back and start all over again.
“The excuse then was that the processing of PAAR was not being handled by the customs. Now that they are in charge of the process from the start to the end, why should the NCS issue an alert that a cargo has been undervalued when it is their own people who issued the PAAR for the same cargo? All they are doing is just creating more bottlenecks. In the end, it is the agent who suffers because they are unable to tell the importers what amount of money that would be sufficient in clearing their goods.”
Okorie also accused the Association of Nigeria Licensed Custom Agent and the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders of not doing enough to ameliorate the pains being experienced by the agents.
But the NAGAFF President, Mr. Eugene Nweke, described the development as teething problems expected following the transfer of the DI scheme from the private sector to the NCS.
He said, “There were lots of internal issues that arose at the point of handing over. One of them was that about 99,000 Form Ms were trapped in the system. As a result, the NCS couldn’t have continued processing of the PAAR without addressing the backlog.
“However, these issues have been laid to rest. If you upload your Form M and other import documents at the designated banks, you will get your PAAR within 24 hours. I did mine under six hours.
“All what you have mentioned are just teething problems. We cannot because of that condemn a system that is laudable and commendable. Also, this process is predicated on a wireless transaction. When you do the wrong thing or conceal information, the system will not attend to you. There are always people who want to cut corners.”
The ANLCA President, Mr. Olayiwola Shittu, did not respond to calls and text message sent to his telephone.
The Deputy Comptroller of Customs, Information and Communication Technology, Mr. Yusuf Bashar, had in February said there was a marked improvement over the process after taking over the destination inspection of imported goods.
He said, “There is a great improvement; we started with about 230 applications; at the close of work on Tuesday, we processed 839 PAARS. All the three service providers had handled a maximum of 800 daily.
“Our target is to do up to 1,000 daily. We are pushing the bar every day to reach the target. If we are able to generate 839 PAARS daily, it means the compliance rate is improving. We can only generate the PAAR if they are sending in good documentation and everyone is doing its own bit.”
Bashar also added that the NCS had inherited 99,342 partial e-Forms M that had been abandoned by the exited service providers.
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