By Our Reporter
The House of Representatives Committee on Customs and Excuse has said it will launch an investigation into the activities of terminal operators over delay in clearance of goods at the nation’s premier port, Apapa.
The Committee said it was unfortunate that rather than enhance revenue generation efforts of the government, terminal operators were rather hampering revenue generation with unnecessary delays, deliberately creating gridlock at the port.
Chairman of the Committee, Leke Abejide, who spoke on behalf of the Committee during an oversight visit to the Apapa Area Command of the Nigerian Customs Service, said the operators were not living to the tenets of the concession agreement they entered with the Nigerian government.
He frowned at the long delays by the terminal operators in the clearance of goods by Customs agents, forcing them to pay heavy demurrage which he said does not benefit the government,
Abejide said terminal operators have become the biggest problems encountered by the Nigerian Customs Service evrn though they are supposed to collaborate with them to facilitate easy clearance of goods.
He said something of the big shipping companies operating in the country and terminal operators behave like demi gods, doing whatever pleases them at the expense of Nigerians, adding that the time has come when something drastic need to be done to address the situation.
According to him: “Stakeholders in the business are losing a lot of money due to delays that is not occasioned by them or the Customs Service. The painful aspect is that these operators are not losing anything. It is these stakeholders tuat are losing.
“The demurrage that accumulate abe has to be paid is not going to the government. It is going to terminal operators and we will invite them to the National Assembly so that we can address this situation once and for all.”
Addressing series of complaints against APMT, one of the Terminal operators, Abejide said: “APMT is not here to help Nigeria. They are actually here to kill this country.
“The electronic call up system is a fraud because it is not helping our economy. We can no longer condone this and so, we must do something about it”.
Abejide said the committee will investigate the concession arrangements with APMT which he said is supposed to expire any moment with a view to looking for credible Nigerians to take over the operation or the terminal.
He also explained that the implementation of the 4 percent Free On Board collection by the service was suspended to allow for further stakeholders engagement and enlightenment before the full take off.
He said it was observed that some officials implementing the FOB were still collecting other charges which the Customs and Excise Act has outlawed, thereby creating mixed feeling about the implementation.
He said the 4 percent FOB will return after the enlightenment as it was aimed to benefit the service and it’s stakeholders, saying “with waiver, the Customs is losing so much money. But with the FOB, the big companies who run away with our money will no longer be able to do that”.
@The Nation.