Federal Government’s failure to develop an online driven standard cargo clearing procedure has continued to encourage corruption and other sharp practices among government agencies operating in the nation’s seaports, BusinessDay has learnt.
The officers and men of the multiple agencies at the ports currently ride on this structural failure to forcefully extort importers and their agents during cargo clearance.
“Corruption and other sharp practices are predominant in the ports due to system failure caused by the inability of the federal ministries of transport, finance including trade and investment to successfully build the required single window online clearing platform,” Tony Anakebe, managing director of Gold-Link Investment Limited, a clearing and forwarding company in Lagos, says.
Today, Anakebe says, there are multiple government agencies at the ports, and government is not doing anything to reduce them. “Customs alone has different units such as evaluation, enforcement, and Abuja alert among others, who the clearing agent has to deal with before a cargo can be released, and as their numbers are so the volume of money that exchanges hands,” he says.
According to Anakebe, corrupt practices thrive very well in Nigerian seaports because of regular physical contact between the clearing agents and government agencies, as “online cargo clearing procedure would not only help to reduce corruption by reducing the rate of human contact, but would also help to cut down delay and cost of doing business at the ports.”
The only way to bring corruption to its knee, he suggests, is for the Federal Government to intensify action in development of the proposed single window for cargo clearance. “A single clearing system will bring all the service providers and government agencies together in one easily accessible portal.”
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), as the statutory agency at the ports, engages in a practice that creates problems for importers and their agents, and also militate against cargo clearance from Nigerian ports, Kayode Farinto, national publicity secretary of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), says.
Customs, he points out, issues the Pre-Arrival Assessment Reports (PAAR), undertakes the assessment of cargo and also releases same from the ports, and it has multiple units in the clearance chain whose involvement in cargo clearance create room for extortion from the agents and their importers. “Customs achieves this by issuing series of alerts and also raises import duties arbitrarily, against the international valuation principles,” Farinto says.
Farinto further points accusing finger on the officers of the Nigeria Police Force, whom he alleges have abandoned their statutory role of providing security at the ports to engaging in stoppage of cargo delivery at shipping companies and terminals under the guise of ‘conducting investigation.’
A protest letter by ANLCA, addressed to Mr. President and seen by our correspondent, claimed that agencies of government that include the Department of State Services (DSS), the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and Plant Quarantine indulge in ‘must-settle-me’ syndrome, which has aggravated the corrupt tendencies in the port.
“The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), though with a lofty patriotic agenda of minimising the entry of sub-standard goods into the country, appears to have abandoned its statutory role of regulation to now become a revenue generating agency through the imposition of high charges for her services,” the protest letter reads.
The letter further accuses officers of the Customs of intimidation of agents by allegations of ‘underpayments of Customs duty’ that was given to the agents by the valuation arm of same Customs. This results to unilaterally suspension of the Customs agents’ licenses, against Section 154 of Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA).
Increase Uche, acting national president, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), says there have been a high-levelled corruption and other sharp practices among officials of government at the ports.
“There is a total system failure in our ports and border stations, occasioned by corruption and extortion on port users by government agencies,” he says.
Uche, who says this development has resulted to increased cost of doing business in the ports, points out that the increased rate of corruption has also made Nigerian seaports uncompetitive, unfriendly and inefficient to port users leading to the diversion of Nigerian bound cargoes to neighbouring countries, with its attendant revenue loss.
Hassan Bello, executive secretary, Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), told Shippers Association in Aba recently, that the agency was committed to developing automated clearing processes that would reduce the presence of people in the port, reduce corruption and enhance timely delivery of cargo to importers’ warehouses.
“As the economic regulator for the port, the Council wants to make single window work to reduce delay, human contact and other substandard practices at the ports,” he said.
