Tajudeen Adebanjo
THE Automobile Association have faulted the National Valuation Database for Imported Motor Vehicles (NDIMV) (2014-2019) introduced by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
The dealers, in a statement by the association’s Secretary, Moshood Ademola, said the duty was fraudulent.
According to them, Customs was trying to fix prices for products it does not own and unilaterally hiking the prices through the NDIMV. They questioned the wisdom in the agency setting prices in contravention of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) guidelines, which provide that prices should be based on Free on Board (FOB) as stipulated by the manufacturer.
Customs, they said, should cross-check from the manufacturers if they were in doubt.
The dealers said prices of vehicles in the Customs’ database are more than what the manufacturers sell to importers.
The dealers said: “For instance, the price of a 30-seater Toyota Coaster bus in the Customs’ NVDIMV document was listed as $100,601.24 whereas Toyota stipulated a FoB price of $36, 763 while a Prado 4WD with manufacturer FoB of between $27,999 and $39,013 has listed FoB price of between $51,988 and $57,579.06,” the dealers said.
The closure of their places of business, they said, had led to loss of income.
“The vehicles in our shops were all imported through the nation’s seaports with appropriate duties paid at the time of import and we wondered which other duties Customs was looking for.
“Customs Services should concentrate on stopping smugglers in their tracks instead of going after law-abiding car dealers, who are contributing to economic development by generating employment. We are not into smuggling. We challenge them to impound smuggled vehicles and prosecute their smugglers.”
The group claimed that the cordial relationship between the dealers and Customs went sour when NCS said it had revoked the price list of imported vehicles, including Ford, Toyota, Mercedes Benz, etc and replaced it with its own list of automobiles contained in its “NDIMV (2014-2019)”.
They said NCS had via a letter dated July 5, last year conveyed approval for the FoB prices of all vehicles sold.
But last March, vehicle importers forwarded the FoB prices for the year to NCS to approve and update its record. But it turned around to revoke it.
They described the Customs’ valuation database as outrageous as it serves no other purpose than to provide cover for extortion.
“You don’t revoke a FoB for a product that is not your own; you can only authenticate the FoB through the manufacturers; you cannot allocate FoB on someone else’s products.
“The rule is that Customs duty calculation is based on FoB prices plus freight, plus insurance and FoB is sacrosanct. It is only fixed by the manufacturers of the products and if in doubt, Customs has ways of verifying, for instance, by contacting the manufacturers or going through the embassies.The issue of valuation is strange in law, there is nothing like the national valuation database,” they said.
But a source in the Customs urged the dealers to take advantage of the Customs Dispute Resolution Mechanism to resolve the impasse.
According to him, the dealers have the right to complain if felt cheated.
“The dealers should approach the Customs authority on any particular vehicle they deem overcharged and it would be resolved. The issue is that business owners always want to pay less value for imported vehicles. They will not want to pay the accurate duties and this becomes a burden to the end-users to either pay it or continue to try to bribe their way,” he said.
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