…Ali accuses DMBs of sabotage

From Uche Usim, Abuja

The Federal Government has realised about N25,375,500 from the ongoing electronic auction, just as 17 additional Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) have finally joined Jaiz Bank to link up to the Nigeria Customs Service’s (NCS)’s portal over two weeks after it was launched. 

The Comptroller General of NCS, Hameed Ali, who stated this yesterday in Abuja during a meeting with 17 bank chiefs and Interswitch accused them of sabotaging Customs’ efforts of transparent auction by delaying to hook up to the portal despite sufficient pre-launch sensitisation by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). 

Ali said: “I am surprised and I do not know what to say. This is an economic sabotage. The money you are going to collect is not coming to Customs, it is not coming to me as a person, it is going to the federation account that will be distributed to the three tiers of government. So, you deny that?”, he queried. 

The Customs boss expressed rude shock that the same banks that collect duties for the establishment and even participated actively in the hitherto shady manual auction, could brazenly distance themselves from the ongoing automated auction system, leaving only Jaiz Bank as the sole participant. 

The participation of Jaiz Bank as the sole clearing house made the bidding process very cumbersome and gave many bidders the impression that the scheme was done to favour northerners and Muslims. 

“For us to initiate this process and the banks pull out calls for concern. One is that we want to get some funds from there. Two, it is going to ease the process of what we do, and it will encourage transparency in what we do,” he added. He noted that fraudulent bidders had infiltrated the process by conniving with one another to circumvent the transparency and integrity of the exercise.

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According to him, whoever cuts corners will be delisted from the system and would never participate in any auction done by Customs in the future.

While Ali could not ascertain how much the establishment had lost as a result of the non-participation of the banks in the exercise, he, however, described various reports alluding to the fact that the ongoing electronic auction sales were riddled with corruption, nepotism and tribalism as unfounded and prejudiced.

 

In their comments, the bank chiefs took turn to explain their challenges with the e-auction bidding, which were mostly technical issues.

Zenith Bank Plc said it was still trying to work on its software to participate in the exercise. Guaranty Trust Bank on its part said no bank would deliberately sabotage the process. Standard Chartered on its part said it was working on its system and should be hooked up in weeks ahead. 

But Citi Bank noted that the agreement it had with the NCS that elapsed in December 2014 was yet to be revalidated. According to the bank, the gap is that the banks were not involved.

All the parties resolved that a technical committee that has all their representatives would meet from time to time to iron out all the technical challenges that may arise as the system stabilises.