13th July, 2017
The Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, has begun the education of Nigerians on the need to have understanding on consignments, particularly vehicles’ shipments, before and after arrival into the country.
This is part of measure toward sensitising the public on Nigerian Customs Service regulation for importation across seaports.
The NCS explained that there had been cases of misinformation on category of consignments and that it was peculiar to damaged vehicles which public often put under wrong categorization.
However, it was gathered that due to abuse of the privilege placed on imported damaged vehicles by the service, the NCS decided to distinguish weeds from shafts, by differentiating accident vehicles from dented ones, and assigned separate value and charges to each categories.
During a visit to Lagos Tin-Can port recently, it was gathered that the service had put the categorization on imported vehicles to halt agents from cutting corners through scheming application for concessions.
Customs personnel within the port told PM News that the service action was to put control on rate at which owner of imported vehicles apply for wrong valuation on their consignments under claim of accident.
The Customs Area Controller (CAC), Tin-can Island Port Command, Yusuf Bashar, through the Public Relations Officer of the Command, Uche Ejesieme, stated that the service had taken upon itself to educate members of the public, particularly owners of imported vehicles to know the different between an accident vehicle and that of dented ones so as not to wrongly put in for wrong valuation, which might in turn lead to forfeiture of consignment.
Distinguishing between accident vehicles and dented ones, Ejesieme explained that for a vehicle to be categorised as accident, chassis must be affected, and that such damage could not be compare to that of case of dented ones the Customs consider as minor.
The command’s spokesperson explained that for vehicle to be categorized as accident, shipping company abroad must issue salvage certificate to prove status of the consignment and that the service would have to inspect the shipment to ascertain the extent of damage for evaluation.
He disclosed that often times, the service had had cases of agents planned man-made accident on consignments in order to attract and enjoy concession and waver on vehicle duty.
According to him, since customs had categorized accident, any agents or owners of vehicles who fill wrong information while applying for valuation may lose complete their consignments to the government.
“Cases of underpayment of duty, not paying outright charges has led to seizure of several vehicles by personnel of the service.
“Customs would continue educating members of the public and unsuspecting owners of consignment, particularly vehicles to always seek for information about their regulation that guide importation so as not to fall victims,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), through its Tin-Can Island Command, disclosed during the week that the customs generated N130 billion between January and June, 2017 following the command strictness on consignments and thorough monitoring of activities within the jurisdiction.
Through a chart, it revealed that the command recorded N19.83 billion in January, N21 billion during February and N20.95 billion within March.
According to the revenue report, the customs had N20.31 billion in April,while in May and June, the command realized N23.87 billion and N23.97 billion.
Ejesieme said that the feat was achieved based on the command’s zero tolerance against false declaration or other infractions, adding that, good welfare package put in place by the management for officers and men of the command were encouraging.
“The welfare package includes a well-equipped clinic, ICT centre with 30 work stations fully networked for training and capacity building of officers and other stakeholders.