Nigeria’s quest for a seamless trade facilitation process might continue to be a mirage if importers continue to make false declaration, a former Deputy Comptroller of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Yahaya Oladiran Idris has disclosed.
Speaking during a chat with the Executive Members of the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria, MARAN during their two-day retreat in Badagry over the weekend, Ex-DCG Yahaya posited that trade facilitation might be impossible without importers being honest in their declaration.
He disclosed that you can’t have trade facilitation when importers are not honest.
Hear him, “You can’t have trade facilitation when the importers are not honest. When the importers are not honest, there is nothing like trade facilitation. There is nothing like ease of doing business.
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“When an importer imports a good, he or she is to pay 20% duty on it., after bringing it in, you now go ahead to pay 5% duty or even 0%. In the process you are caught by Customs and you are now complaining that the Customs is not facilitating trade.
“How will Customs facilitate trade in such a situation? That is the reason why you have Debit Notes DN left, right, center.
“So trade facilitation starts from me as an importer. It also starts from the clearing agents because in some cases, the importer may deceive the clearing agents on the contents of the importation. So, everyone needs to do their due diligence.
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“Many importers hide under the different bands of tariffs that we have. So you can’t say precisely that it’s customs that is causing problem when it comes to trade facilitation, and this is not because I am tryna NG to exonerate the Nigeria Customs Services” he added.
Continuing, Yahaya disclosed that there is an urgent need for the Federal Government to intervene and delineate some of the functions of some of the government agencies.
He lamented that in instances where NAFDAC and the Standards Organizations of Nigeria are to inspect the same products, this, he said also contribute to the delay experienced.
“There are some chemicals that NAFDAC has to inspect, SON also has to inspect, until the 2 agencies are done with it, they can’t be released, government should look into that, it’s very very important, so let one agency deal with certain particular products, so it will ease business” he disclosed.
