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 Daily Independent Online.
* Wednesday, August 11, 2004.
Grant customs autonomy, FG told
Stories By Muyiwa Dare
Maritime
Reporter, Lagos.
The Federal Government has been called upon to
grant the required autonomy to the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), as its
continued supervision by the Finance Ministry, or Internal Affairs
Ministry, would not assist the officers and men to reach optimal
performance.
This call was made in Lagos by the National
Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) in a
position paper presented to the Minister of State for Finance, Mrs.
Esther Nenadi Usman, during her inspection of customs formations in the
state.
The association, which is the umbrella body of
professional freight forwarders in the country, stated that it must be
concerned and interested in matters, affecting the customs service,
because it is occupying a strategic position in the economy of the
country.
“In addition, our businesses are for the
existence and operations of the service. As long as all genuine
import and export
transactions are handled and reported to the service at the entry points
and for the purposes of customs formalities, our interest is unavoidably
tied to a functional and efficient customs service. On this premise, we
proffer that a well structured and service-oriented Nigeria Customs
Service will usher in a better economic environment and quality service
delivery in our gathering,” NAGAFF stated.
The association said that since the
Presidential Committee on Customs Reforms would soon wind up its
assignment, the minister must have noticed from her tour of the various formations that the service
requires a lot of support in terms of logistics, welfare of officers and
men, training and retraining with a view to updating them in the modern
day techniques of the ever-changing dynamics of international trade and facilitation.
It posited that the need for all these had
prompted the association to sponsor a private bill for the autonomy to be
granted to the service at the National Assembly.
“We sincerely believe that by the time the
presidential committee will be winding up, we expect you to support the
need to grant the NCS the desired autonomy. This matter cannot be
over-emphasised, as their continued supervision under the Finance
Ministry, or the Internal Affairs Ministry, will never assist them to
perform optionally. Our main reason for writing this paper is to draw
your attention to issues that we may call oversight functions, which your
committee still has to deal with,” NAGAFF told Mrs. Usman.
While commending the presidential committee for
the job done so far, the association maintained that despite the fact
that stakeholders received with mixed feelings the emergence of the new
management team for the customs service, it still upholds the principles
of hardwork and injection of fresh blood into the organisation, with a
view to accomplishing the goals and set objectives of the government.
“There is no doubt that the new management team
of the service has the capacity to turn around the service and
re-position it for efficiency, quality service, trade facilitation,
anti-smuggling operations, revenue generation and collection, meeting up
with international obligations and treaties. They also have the
professional will to prosecute any person, who contravenes the Customs
and Excise Management Act (CEMA), no matter how highly placed such a
person may be in our society. This can only be achieved if the government
will continue to give them support because port activities are not for
mediocres and inconsequentials,” the association concluded.
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