Customs Frustrating Cargo Clearance At Seaports — Clearing Agents

Clearing agents operating at the nation’s seaports have raised the alarm over the activities of officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Police unit, frustrating cargo clearance at the nation’s seaports.

Speaking to newsmen, the acting President, Association of Nigerian Licenced Customs Agents (ANLCA), Dr Kayode Farinto, decried the activities of the Police unit of the service, saying they should maintained core disciplinary measure instead of dabbling into cargo clearance.

According to him, competent and trained officer in the service should be appointed as head of service instead of a retired military officer with no experience about how the service operates.

The Customs’ broker acting president, however, urged the federal government to provide more scanners at the port stating that the one’s procured are not enough.

He thereafter, bemoaned the attitude of few Customs officers who despite the presence of the scanners still subject cargoes to 100 per cent cargo examination.

According to him, “Scanners are not enough. The very few one that are functional, we still have situation where some agencies do not rely on the scanning image analysis. They want to subject cargo to the initial physical examination. Everybody should key into the scanner image analysis report and in line with what Customs says, every agencies can have the scanner results in the comfort of their office then we should begin to look into that direction.

“Then the role of Customs police should be confined to only disciplinary measures for their officers. They do not have any value to add to cargo clearance. There are a lot of factors militating against the maritime industry in Nigeria, including lack of infrastructure such as scanners to speed up cargo examination by Customs and other government agencies, numerous agencies of governments at the seaport carrying out similar functions. Perennial traffic gridlock hindering easy access to the seaport and Poor road network within the port vicinity.”

Other challenges, according to him, are lack of a functional railway system for immediate evacuation of containers out of the port, activities of miscreants within the port corridors, and corruption and sabotage in the system.

Farinto, also called on the federal government to ensure operation of National Single Window (NSW), explaining that absence of the NSW platform was responsible for challenges stifling trade and compounding cargo clearance process at the nation’s seaports.

He informed that Nigeria remains one of the few countries in West and Central Africa that has not fully operated the single window platform and as a result affects ease of doing business initiative and efforts aimed at improving efficiency at the port.