• ‘Cargoes were wrongly released at ports’
• It’s a case of extortion, agents allege
Importers and truck drivers have accused some Customs men of harassing them on the streets after the clearance of their goods at the ports.
They alleged that men of the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone ‘A’ always intercepted their goods on Lagos roads after being released under the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR), at the ports.
Some of the officers, the importers claimed, demand between N200,000 and N500,000 and sometimes more, as bribes to get the goods released.
But, FOU’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) Mr Uche Ejesieme described the allegations as baseless and fabricated.
The action of the FOU officers, the importers said, could be likened to “second clearing” after they had been cleared by other senior Customs officers.
They appealed to the Federal Government, particularly the Ministry of Finance and the Customs leadership, to call the FOU officers to order.
Around 3.00pm last Friday, some of the officers were seen a few metres from the Apapa Port, stopping truck drivers over the goods they are conveying.
The exercise led to heavy traffic, which left motorists complaining.
They urged the Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi, to restrain his men.
The Nation learnt that in 2011, Dikko ordered out of the road operatives of the anti-smuggling arm who men roadblocks impound containers already cleared.
The directive followed complaints and petitions over the operatives excesses.
A commuter, Mr James Okwudili, said the FOU officers have no right to seize containers that are less than five kilometres away from the ports.
“These are officers the nation expects to go into the bush and creek to combat smuggling harassing innocent and law-abiding importers on the road. If there is a problem with what the truck driver took from the port to the main road, who do we blame? Who is responsible for the release of cargo from the port? Is it not Customs? Is it because of their own inefficiency that the rest of us would not be allowed to carry on with our businesses? he queried.
“Customs said the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) was introduced to make cargo clearance easy from the port, but what we are seeing on this road daily is not what we expected from the scheme. We had hoped that since Customs has taken over all aspects of cargo clearance, the issues of falsified documents, under declaration, over invoicing and other import related problems, would be resolved when the goods are still inside the ports,” Okwudili added.
A security officer, who was on the scene, said they had in the past advised the Customs officers to map out strategies to ensure that only certified goods are allowed to leave the ports, wondering why a Customs officer would release a cargo from the port for another to intercept it on the main road.
“Who released the goods? Why must a Customs officer release the cargo from the port in broad day light and another officer would be saying the owner of the goods, or the truck driver has questions to answer? Why? It shows that the level of trust among the Customs officers has degenerated and there is nobody in control,” the security officer said.
A car dealer, Mr Sunday Adegoroye, said the officers were violating the Comptroller-General’s ban on hinterland patrol because of what they intend to gain from truck drivers.
He said if the importer disobeys any import law, he should have been prevented by the mechanism put in place by the Customs from taking the goods out of the port.
He said any officer who releases questionable goods should be disciplined to serve as deterrent to others.
“Those responsible for the intercepted goods must also be punished because it shows that some people somewhere are not doing what they are supposed to do, and that is why we have this problem on the road.
Ejesieme said the unit’s operation was more of intelligence, adding that its operatives impound suspicious containers that were wrongly released from the ports.
FOU officers, he said, have the power to intercept any container that is against the Federal Government’s fiscal policy.
“If they were given information that there was a manipulation in the document presented for the release of the cargo from the port, our officers would go there and intercept the item and the release officer would be asked to report to FOU and subsequently to the Customs Headquarters in Abuja.
“FOU is an enforcement unit of the Nigeria Customs Service and our job it to complement the efforts of every Customs command in the zone.”
The motive, he said, was to ensure that no importer or clearing agent succeeded in shortchanging the government.
He appealed to Nigerians to give the unit information that could lead to the arrest of fraudulent importers.
