Customs, NPA insist on payment of duties
From Alifa Daniel and Azimazi Momoh Jimoh, Abuja
AN attempt by the Senate to put an end to the recurring scarcity of recharge cards of the Mobile Telecommunications Network (MTN) yesterday collapsed following the absence of Global System of Mobile Communications (GSM) service provider at a meeting called by the Senate Committee on Commerce on the matter.
Negotiations on the release of the cards between Customs, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), MTN with the senators acting as mediators, collapsed following the absence of MTN officials to write a cheque to facilitate the release of three million recharge cards stuck at the ports.
The recharge cards were seized because MTN was yet to pay duties on the cards.
As early as 9.30 a.m. all members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, the NCC representatives, the Customs and Consumer Protection Council (CPC) had gathered at the senate committee room seven, where the meeting was to commence.
Anger and shock took over the entire meeting as the Chairman of Senate Committee on Commerce, Senator Ibikunle Amosu read a letter from MTN to the effect that MTN was unwilling to attend the meeting.
The letter, which was addressed to the chairman of the committee reads in part: "MTN has provided all the relevant information on this issue to the Senate Committee on Communications and would hereby request that any concerns or issues on this subject may be directed to this committee for its kind attention."
Many of the senators, including senators Saidu Dansadau, Iyiola Omisore described the letter as sheer insult on the committee and its members.
They threatened to consider appropriate sanctions against MTN.
Senator Amosu pacified the senators, saying: "We are definitely going to force MTN to comply with our invitation. That is not a problem at all. What is important now is to address this issue of cards scarcity to reduce the hardships it is posing to Nigerians."
The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Engr. Earnest Ndukwe also tried to persuade the committee to prevail on the Nigeria Customs Service to release the three million recharge cards of MTN, which was yet to be cleared.
But Customs representative and Comptroller Of Export and Import, Mr. Julius Nwagwu said MTN had severally abused the concessions granted to it by Customs.
He declared that the three million cards would not be released until MTN paid the required clearance duty.
Nwagwu explained that Customs cancelled those concessions because of those abuses, insisting that the MTN was aware of the laws and policies guiding the clearance of imported goods.
At the prompting of the NCC boss, negotiations were suspended for some hours to allow some leaders of MTN attend the meeting. Engineer Ndukwe quickly made phone calls to MTN and assured the senators that MTN representatives would be at the meeting by 4 p.m.
Senators were again disappointed when a representative of MTN failed to show up 5.30 p.m.
Senator Amosu after consulting with his colleagues announced that the meeting has been put off.
He, however, said MTN could meet with Customs and NCC to settle its differences before the cards could be released.`
