Customs absolves self from delays in cargo clearance procedures

By Dapo Olawuni

The Nigeria Customs Service has said that it was wrong for stakeholders to blame the Customs officers for every delay encountered in the cargo clearance processes, saying that cargo clearance is a chain process and everybody has a role to play.

Speaking with our correspondent on Wednesday, Spokesperson of the Tin Can Island Command of customs, Mr. Uche Ejesieme the role of the customs is divided into two; examination and release of cargo.

He said the command has identified certain delays in cargo clearance caused by terminal operators shipping companies, government agencies and the licensed customs agent.

He said as a way of correcting the lapses, the Customs Area Controllers, Compt Musa Baba Abdullahi recently called a ‘no holds bared” meeting where the critical stakeholders were represented to discuss on restoring supply chain integrity.

Part of the resolutions of the meeting according to him, is that Customs officers must henceforth resume work at 8am, while terminal operators must have positioned all containers for examination of cargoes to commence by 10am.

Ejesieme said “Sometimes if the agents don’t mention Customs, they find it difficult even to communicate with their principals, the importers, so we are used to leaking our wounds in Customs,meanwhile we are only limited to just two roles; examination and release of cargo”

“Most importers and agents are not ready to declare what they have, by the time we go for physical examination, you would see contradiction, this is why alerts will continue to come, if you don’t want alerts to come, then you must be ready to be compliant”

“We are happy that over time, people are beginning to align and comply with fiscal policies of government in terms of trade”

“We have actually tried to bring all the critical stakeholders together on one platform to be in sync with the expectations and directives of Ease of Doing Business”

“We started mobilising the stakeholders because we reviewed and saw that there was need for us to improve on our supply chain integrity and management, we discovered that there were gaps which are not peculiar or synonymous with customs”

“We discovered there were gaps with the shipping companies and terminal operators, gaps with some of pur operatives in the field, gaps among other sister security agencies, regulatory agencies, importers and their agents”

“Everybody at the end of the day agreed on certain parameters and communicae which has now become our Standard Of Operations (SOP)”

“On the area of Customs we discovered that, before now, people tend to apportion all manner of blames to Customs when there are issues affecting the trade value chain, even if the issues have to do with infrastructure, some people will ignorantly apportion it to Customs”

“In the cause of the review, we discovered that Customs have only two major roles in the value chain which is examination and release of cargo. Transmission of electronic manifest is done by the shipping company, punching and declaration is done by the agent, after this, examination and release is done by Customs”

“If you are exiting cargo, TDO and other final processes, it is not Customs duty”

“On areas that concerns Customs, we were having some complaints from stakeholders, either rightly or wrongly, that our officers were not resuming on time, and on that meeting, the Area Controller has directed that all officers must be at their desk by 8am”

“For the terminal operators, the meeting under the CAC agreed that all container examination must start by 10am, this means that if a container is to be examined today, the terminal operator ought to have positioned them prior to that day”

“All agencies are expected to line up behind Customs as directed by the ease of doing business committee as the lead agency. So the issue of one agency coming to give flimsy excuses for not participating in cargo examination would no longer be tolerated ” he said

Ejesieme also added that the era where other government agencies delay or repeat examination after Customs has concluded the process is no longer acceptable.

He said the command has also discovered that the cargo examination reports are not generated as quickly as soon as examination is concluded.

To this end, Compt Musa has directed that once examination is concluded, the report must follow immediately.

“For the importers and their agents, the issue of compliance is what we have been preaching, if we are saying that Customs must resume by 8oclock and examination of cargo starts by 10 am, they too are expected to be there before that time. It wouldn’t make any sense if all the agencies are on ground and there are no agents or importers there”

“If for example you are given an appointment at the US embassy, sometimes they give you 6.15 am and you will never miss it, the Area Controller is not taking the decay in road infrastructure as an excuse, irrespective of where you are coming from, we expect that officially, every officer must be at his desk by 8oclock”

“The Controller himself come in before 7.30 am and he closes by 7pm, in this PR unit, we resume by 6.30 to 7 am.
It has to do with discipline and your determination to work, irrespective of where you are coming from”