- Customs Area Controller, Tin Can Island Port Command, Compt. Dera Nnadi
By Anthony Nwachukwu
The Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, has called for stakeholder partnership as the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) continues to explore better ways to “balance compliance with revenue generation,” stating that misunderstanding of government policies often lead to smuggling in various forms.
Speaking on the theme, “Renewed Hope Agenda: The Place of Nigeria’s Maritime Industry/Challenges of Customs Revenue Generation/Anti-Smuggling Operations” at the 13th League of Maritime Editors and Publishers (LOMEP) AGM/Seminar in Lagos Friday, Adeniyi said the agency has been evolving ways to enhance trade facilitation, including stakeholder enlightenment, education and advocacy programmes as ways to reduce smuggling and increase revenue collection.
According to the CGC, who was represented by the Customs Area Controller, Tin Can Island Port Command, Compt. Dera Nnadi, trade is synonymous with the growth of any nation, and with Nigeria as a developing nation with limited industrial capacity but a growing population in need of food, accommodation, security and general wellbeing, “we cannot underscore the importance of revenue generation within our customs administration.”
To that end, the current NCS management has also laid a foundation for revenue generation to include exports, believing that revenue from export will ultimately prove the nation’s capacity, growth and industrialisation.
Meanwhile, “today, we are making greater efforts to mitigate, rather than promote the challenges we are having in revenue collection through the seaports, airports and land borders. One of such challenges is the delay in cargo clearance in our ports to the extent that we are yet to attain 24-hour cargo clearance in our ports.”
He listed other challenges to include “cargo integrity,” adding that since one cannot legislate character, the agency has been progressively reforming and automating its processes since 2006 “because we believe that one of the best ways to eliminate the challenges of delay in our clearing process is to automate.
“As far back as 2022, we have adopted a system that we believe will be a game-changer in our clearing process and revenue generation – the trade maximisation project. This project incorporates the anti-smuggling process in our operations, and we are working assiduously within our budget and the present government to actualise it.
“However, the most recent development that we have adopted to enhance our operations is the NCS Economic Operator – a system by which we guarantee reward for compliant traders to the extent that one can take delivery of one’s cargo with some documents with which it was imported from the country of origin.
“We have notified some key players in the industry who have participated in the precursor to this development – those we call the fast-track beneficiaries, and have updated it to that level. It was launched three months ago.
“We have also introduced, under the new Nigeria Customs Service Act, 2023, the Advance Ruling, which is an agreement between a trader who makes a request and submits to the Nigeria Customs what he wants to import, the duty he wants to pay.
“In agreement with the Nigeria Customs, that cargo, when it arrives, is given an expedited action and is let out of the hook from the customs environment to the owner’s warehouse without further intervention.”
Also, Time Release Study was recently introduced to study how to “eliminate the delays associated with cargo clearance and understand the time it takes to clear cargo from our ports real time, based on empirical evidence.” According to him, this will substitute speculation with empirical evidence, the last of which was conducted in in 2007.
“The essence of all this is to ensure that Nigerian ports and customs operations become highly competitive to the expectations of industry stakeholders.”
Nevertheless, in “every customs environment all over the world, there are smuggling activities. However, one of the greatest things that lead to smuggling is policies. When people don’t understand policies issued by government, attempts are made to circumvent them.
For instance, “because the 41 items that were removed from official forex were not banned outright, people resorted to finding ways of bringing them in without actually declaring them in their Form ‘M’. That was smuggling in another form.”
Also, there are some items that people need but Nigeria does not have the full capacity to produce, and because the government wants to protect local industries, particular buyers are placed on them, “but because of the forces of demand and supply, people would want to import them. This is also a form of smuggling,” he added.
To curb these trends, “we have embarked on enlightenment, education, and I am happy with opportunities like this to inform Nigerians about some of the things we are doing. The greatest thing we are trying to do is advocacy, capacity building, and as much as possible to improve stakeholder relationship.
“On this note, I appeal that every other stakeholder involved in the clearance process should partner the Nigeria Customs. I am happy to announce that under the Nigeria Customs trade platform, almost every government agency involved in clearance and handling of cargo in our seaports, airports and land borders are hooked up.
“For that reason, the president approved that we introduce a single window programme, and that programme is currently domiciled with the Federal Inland Revenue Service. I believe that by the time it comes fully on board, the challenges of revenue collection and smuggling will be reduced to the barest minimum.”
