Most Nigerians, quite typically, would neither be surprised nor alarmed at one of the revelations that emerged at the probe of the e-customs modernisation project by the House of Representatives Joint Committees on Customs and Excise, Finance, and Banking Currency which opened last week. Among others, it emerged that the modernisation project, which has since stalled due to litigation is actually costing the country some $8.810 billion in lost revenue annually. Admitting that the suits which are three in number are “impeding the commencement of the e-customs project”, Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, who was represented by Stephen Okon, the ministry’s director of home finance, told the committee that her ministry was already working with the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) to conclude the arbitration quickly.
The matter obviously deserves expeditious action not just because of the quantum of unearned revenue said to be involved, but also on the urgent need to reposition the Nigerian Customs Service for effective service delivery.
Even at that, Nigerians could not but marvel at how things got to this unfortunate point. In 2020, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) was said to have awarded a $3.1 billion contract for the automation of the operations of the NCS. Soon after, a private firm, Adani System Limited, went to court, claiming that it had already signed an agreement with the CBN Technical Committee on Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme (CISS) to modernise customs in 2017. As it turned out, both the finance ministry and the agency directly involved – the Nigerian Customs – would claim to be unaware of the contract. In fact, the chairman of the CISS was said to have been invited by the Comptroller-General of Customs and, after a series of discussions, made to realise that the committee not only lacked the capacity to enter into any legal agreement but couldn’t have done it on behalf of the customs.
In the end, the customs would claim that their investigations actually revealed that the company, Messrs Adani Mega Systems Limited, not only outsourced the agreement to an unauthorised third party, Adani International Limited (UK) registered four months after the agreement was signed, but also that the company had since been dissolved.
The country as a whole waits on the AGF to help untangle the knots. In the meantime, we must state that such turf wars, neither borne of national interest nor driven by best practices, are hardly new. If anything, they are a reflection of how narrow interests, as against the public interest, have long become the standard fare in public procurements across the board. Nigerians would recall a particularly odious example – that of Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID) in which a foreign entity nearly swindled the country of billions through arbitration based on a flawed contract. This latest tussle on customs modernisation would appear to have exceeded the boundaries of the typical dysfunction and the benumbing dissonance that have come to characterise governance and its processes. What is apparent is the triumph of special interests over the national will. It reeks of corruption.
Without prejudice to the cases in court, Nigerians deserve to know the details of a contract in which the direct implementing agency – the customs – could neither be taken into confidence let alone allowed to make an input on a project that is at the heart of its operations. That probe should help address specifically, the question of whether or not the CISS actually possesses the powers under which it purportedly parcelled out those controversial contracts and whether due processes were followed.
And to think that the government’s hands are needlessly tied on a matter in which monetary remedies ordinarily exist should the litigant eventually prove his case in court is not only unfortunate but regrettable. Once again, we expect the AGF to act quickly to put this matter to rest.