AMARTO, NARTO accuse Customs of indiscriminate clampdown, auction of Trucks

By Dapo Olawuni |

The Chairman of Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMARTO), Chief Remi Ogungbemile,has raised an alarm over what he described as indiscriminate seizure of their trucks and sometimes auctioning same by officers of the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone A of the Nigeria Customs Service in Ikeja Lagos.

Chief Ogungbemi told our correspondent in a chat on Tuesday that truck drivers are not privy to the content of the containers they are often contracted to transport, hence they should not be held liable for an offence that is clearly the fault of the importer.

The AMARTO chairman described the action of the customs as a “miscarriage of justice”

He said truck owners are suffering miscarriage of justice as a result of dishonesty on the side of some unscrupulous importers and exporters who fails to declare honestly what they are bringing in or taking out of the country.

“This forms the reason why Customs arrest, impound, and even auction our trucks for offence that are not committed by we truckers”

“So, government should make it right in a way by which one can account for their selfish interest”

“Having said this, I’m using this forum again to renew my passionate appeal to the Comptroller General of Customs to please look into the plight of the Containerized trucks owners that are suffering for something they know nothing about, apart for being the carrier of the containers said to have passed through various exterminations before loaded in the ports”

Also speaking on the seizure of trucks by Customs and auctioning them, Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO),Alogba Ogbogo advised that in case of any infraction, Customs should only seize the containers and not the trucks that are used to convey the containers.

Explaining the plight of truckers, he said: “Most times when we carry these things from the ports you don’t even know what is in the container, you are only a means of connivance. So the customs should seize the container and leave the trucks because they don’t know what is in the container”

’“The bottom line of the whole thing is the trucks are not even supposed to be impounded, take the container and leave the truck, because the truck owner is only a means of conveyance and is not privy to what is in the container”.

Explaining further, he said impounding the trucks by officers of the FOU Zone ’A’ is a pure act of violating the law, adding that when that happens the law will take its course.

“What the FOU Zone ’A’ is doing in the area of impounding trucks is an act of violation of the law and if that happens, the law should take its course”.

‘”The truck owner was not part of the payment of duties and all that, so in what ways can he be held responsible. So, pick up the container and allow the truck owner to go, the more they stay there the more the cost. The income of transporter is a product of his turn around, we will look at the issue and take the necessary actions as the law may permit or deem fit” he said.

Reacting to the allegations, the National Public Relations Officer of Customs, Mr. Joseph Attah, explained that the CEMA states that the means of conveyance is also liable to seizure.

He however disclosed that owners of the trucks have made a passionate appeal to the Controller General of Customs Col Hammed Ali (rtd) pleading for their trucks to be released.

”CEMA describes that means of conveyance are subject to seizure. I am aware that the owners of trucks have made a passionate appeal to the CGC for him to take a passionate look at it and see whether in exercise of his discretion, there could come about a system when they may retrieve their trucks”

“But get it straight, in the eyes of the law the means of conveyance is Iiable to seizure. Between you and i the position of the law is that every means of conveyance of smuggled goods is liable to seizure, if they were taken to court and they have been condemned, they may be auctioned as directed” Attah said