By Steve Agbota
The Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has called on its members, all the freight forwarders and importers to embrace the improved Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) valuation as deployed by the management of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on May 20, 2022 describing it as a way to go in customs administration.
Its Public Relations Officer, Tincan Island Port chapter, Onome Joy Monije, who made the charge in a chat with newsmen on the deployment of the improved VIN Valuation in Lagos recently observed that with the development, NCS planned to eliminate interface between its operatives and licensed customs agents in the course of vehicle clearing thereby ending corruption in the system.
Monije recalled that the leadership of ANLCA had been in the forefront of clamouring for a system that would provide a uniform value for all the Vehicles imported into the country irrespective of the port or terminal it was cleared adding that VIN Valuation was an answer to ANLCA’s prayers.
“Now, if they give you the value of Sienna 2020 model for one million in Tincan, in Apapa, Kano, Port-Harcourt, it is the same value. So, the issue of FOU intercepting your vehicle on the highway on the ground that you have a compromised value is over. Once, we the stakeholders are able to do the right thing, that would be a thing of the past.
“What we are trying to do, especially those of us in Tincan and PTML that usually witness high volume of vehicles, is to inform our stakeholders so that it doesn’t sound new to them. VIN valuation is taking off by the end of today, May the 20th, 2022 and part of the things we want them to know is that age limit for vehicles under this VIN valuation regime is 12 years. So, any vehicle from the upwards of 2013 are vehicles that are acceptable as government policy. So, importers are not encouraged to bring in vehicles below 2013 model.
“Also, before you can access VIN Valuation, you have to process your VREG and one of the things you need to know is that if there’s an error in your VREG, you cannot scale through to take delivery of your vehicle. So, it means, whosoever is hiring IT staff should be able to hire IT staff that is good with the system because if you pay for your VREG, pay customs duty and what you have on ground didn’t tally with what you have in your documents, it means you cannot take delivery.
