NAGAFF accuses Shippers of false declarations

By Abiodun Oba |

Freight Forwarders operating under the aegis of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) have raised alarm over alleged fraudulent activities of importers.

In a chat with Journalists recently, the Founder, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr Boniface Aniebonam accused the importers of encouraging ‎high level of concealment and false declarations of cargoes to reduce government revenue.

He also stated that the importers have defeated the goal of ease of doing business with concealment.
He said, “False declarations and concealment are bane of ease of doing business in Nigeria.
For instance, an importer will carry pharmaceutical products and the importer will declare motor spare parts but they the customs NICIS will not identify that.”
Dr Aniebonam identified the huge seizures of under declared containers made by the Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone A, Ikeja as a confirmation of the allegation of malpractice by local importers.
His words, “You go to FOU,Zone” A” and you see containers seized because someone say it is clock that is inside and when it was opened, it was another good.
“Our job is to clear goods and deliver to the owner’s warehouse.”
The NAGAFF Founder also disclosed that government ease of doing business is not achieving it’s objectives because of insincerity of importers.
“The purpose of ease of doing business is for government to discover that businesses are not doing well and let’s find a solution to it. Laws are made to be obeyed but those laws are not being obeyed and that is why there are bottlenecks in doing business because we are not enforcing the law if that is the case.”
The NAGAFF top man also argued further, that, SON returning to the port is for the discharge of their statutory duty on standards and quality of goods imported into Nigeria.
“Let it be on record that SON means life through standards and there is nothing more than protection of life.”

“At the moment, let it be on record that matters of non-compliance to import regulations are one of the greatest problems in our ports operations and management occasioned by corruption.