By Steve Agbota
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has once again evaded court hearings over alleged arbitrarily increase of the Pre Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR).
An originating summon was filed by a group called ‘Kay Far Freight Forwarders Forum’ on December 13, 2021, wherein the freight forwarders asked for an order on Pre Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) being allegedly arbitrarily issued by the NCS. The group had gone to court for determination of whether the Nigeria Customs Service has the right to arbitrarily increase the PAAR without following the provision contained in the valuation Act 20 of 2003.
Kay Far had also prayed the court to determine whether the NCS after the issuance of PAAR, which has been allegedly jacked up, can still query the value issue on the same PAAR and still subject the importation to the reappraisal of duty.
However, due to the absence of the NCS in the last hearing, the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, had fined the NCS a sum of N50,000 owing to the failure of the service to appear for hearing fixed October 12, 2022 for hearing.
However, speaking with our correspondent last week, counsel to Kay Far freight forwarders, Ayodele Olaniyi said the NCS failed to appear for the third time, despite the court warning and fine, he informed that the NCS only filed a counter affidavit that was submitted on the day of hearing but however failed to show up.
He alleged that NCS when boxed to a corner, always adopted a lackadaisical attitude towards to slow down the process. “It is habitual of the NCS; if you file processes against them and they know they have been boxed to a corner, what they do is to start all this lackadaisical attitude towards the matter
“This particular matter was filed on the 13th day of December 2021, since then we took the process personally to Abuja served them at Wuse zone 3, and we’ve been in court on three occasions,” he said. Also speaking, a member of the Kay Far Freight forwarding group, Dr Kayode Farinto, who spoke to our correspondent alleged that the present NCS is too docile and requires a career officer, while seeking that the President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint career officers from the system rather than appointing from outside
“Yes, I wouldn’t want to talk much on this issue so that it won’t amount to prejudice, the case is in court, the judge will determine whether they have the rights, what I do know is that under the 1999 constitution of this country, every body has the legitimate right to sue if you feel your interest is being trampled upon and the issue of whether they are doing the right thing or not,” he said.