…. Your men in the East want to run us out of business
From: OKEY SAMPSON, Aba
Aba industrialists, under the aegis of Aba Industrialists Association (AIA), have sent a Save Our Soul (SOS) message to the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), urging him to call his men in the eastern part of the country to order before the officials run them out of businesses.
Chairman of AIA, Chief (Sir) Emma Obi, who sent the message said many of their members who bring in raw materials and even importers who import finished products have been subjected to double duty charges when clearing their goods at the Onne and Port Harcourt ports in Rivers state.
“After spending all your money and paying all the duties as stipulated by Customs, releasing the same goods for which duties were paid become a problem with its attendant demurrage that accrue as a result of the delay”.
Obi said Customs at the eastern ports have made it so difficult that before one clears his goods some of which are raw materials and are not contraband, the person has to pay through the nose – paying duty on the same goods thrice and the importer in some cases will end up paying as much as the amount he imported the goods with.
The AIA chairman gave an instance, “For example, if one goes to these ports to clear goods, the Customs issues the person a document called PAAR which stipulates the duty payable on the goods. After paying the duty, the officers that would release the goods will now tell person that the duty you paid which you have the certificate, will be rejected and raise additional huge some of money to your normal duty, claiming that the PAAR raised by the office was insufficient.
“This is not the end, when the goods eventually leave the port, you must pass Customs checkpoints at Iriebe, Akpojo and Isiokpo, these three places are another war zones for importers of goods in the East. At these places, Customs men at these areas who operate under the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) will demand for clearance papers and release notes from the wharf. After receiving all these things, they will now tell you that you under paid again despite the fact you paid import duty twice at the port.
“You will think they are joking, the next thing they will do is to push down the driver from the truck and employ a driver who do not know how to driver that particular truck to take it to their headquarters in Owerri, Imo State where they will begin to raise another import duty for the same goods cleared at the port. The container may stay there for one month and the owner of the truck would be charging the importer from between N30, 000 to N50, 000 per day for the number of days the truck will be at the Customer’s premises. It is a horrible thing we are passing through in this part of the country”, he lamented.
“A pointer here was goods imported into the country by one Chris Ben earlier this year. At the Port Harcourt wharf, a duty of N401, 587 entered on the PAAR was paid by the importer and the goods cleared. However, on getting to one of the checkpoints, the same container was sized and taken to FOU headquarters in Owerri where an additional duty of N1, 061, 642 was raised and the importer had to pay again before the goods were released”, Sir Obi said.
The AIA boss regretted that the practice in the Easterner ports are not the same with a place like Lagos which he said was why many importers in Aba and Onitsha now import their goods through Lagos.
He appealed to the Comptroller General of Customers to call his men in the Eastern ports to order and let them have one channel of clearing of goods because according to him, “there is nowhere in the world duty will be paid thrice for a single consignment.”
However, the spokesperson of the FOU zone C, Owerri, Chioma Onuoha, debunked the allegations. She that her office which is independent of states and ports commands, only seizes goods which had already been cleared at the ports when the importer under paid duty.
She informed Daily Sun that such under payment arose mostly when the importer under declares the cost and or quantity of goods imported and when such anomalies are discovered the importer would be made to pay the correct duty.