My Presence will send dubious importers away in Tin Can Port - ...

Tag : tin
As if that was a bad character trait, the news was making therounds before his resumption of office that he does not believe incutting corners. First three months into office, Agbaje says histask is to make sure that every stakeholder in the port, does whathe is supposed to do to ensure compliance to the 48 hr cargoclearance target.

Yet he says that his presence would cause many dubious importers toabandon their containers and that it has already started happening.
Hear him:

There has been this allegation that customs are not making clearingprocedures fast, by bringing in the monitoring committee to theport to monitor the clearing process in the ports, what is thesituation now in your command?

Let me first of all state that customs intension for bringing inmonitoring team to monitor the clearing process, is to make itfaster. The fact remains that the importers are not truthful andthey don’t want to be truthful to themselves. Most of themcome up with false declaration and concealment.

They engage in all sort of fraudulent activities which the customswould not overlook. Right now 48 single declaration goods (SDGs)have been abandoned at CPC for the past 2 weeks. The owners ofthese SDGs have refused to show up, and I don’t know why.

The only thing I suspect is that the owners have not declaredproperly, and probably, because they have heard that a newcomptroller has taken over, they abandoned their SDGs and ran away.This is what I think. This is not customs fault at all, it is theimporters fault for not doing the proper thing.

There is always this allegation that because the customs do not dotheir job properly, it brings about congestion and importers findit difficult to even identify their containers. What are you goingto do about it?
Yes, I hear there is a problem in one of the terminals. The agentshave complained of block stacking and I have been able to talk tothe management, because agents have complained severally to me Ihave asked them to find a way of saving the situation.

It is not basically the custom problem. Even, the customs has beenable to ask them to make haste and let the people carry theirconsignment, I think they have not been able to solve the problem,but that is the problem from the terminal operators, and this hascontributed to the delay in the cargo clearance. As far as I knowthe 48 hrs of cargo clearance is attainable, if there iscollaboration. All the stakeholders should collaborate and worktowards that.

The Nigerian Customs is willing to attain that, but however cannever single handedly achieve it. Other stakeholders must worktowards that as well. Like the terminal operators here, they aresupposed to have handling equipments to make cargo delivery faster.It is not the duty of the customs to move the containers, what thecustoms does is examine the container, and be sure that the contentof the container is not contraband, make sure that the right dutyis paid for the goods contained in the container.

Also, don’t forget there are other agencies in the port, thatmust clear the goods as well. So you see that if all that handlethe activities concerning cargo clearance in the port, remainineffective in their own part, they would eventually frustrate thecustoms effort in achieving their aim

Now that importers are abandoning their containers, is it not goingto affect the 48 hrs of cargo clearance, no matter how effectiveyou might be?

For those containers that are marked for physical examination,which their owners have abandoned, I will wait till after 28 days,starting from the day they lodged in their SDGs. If after 28 daysthey did not come forward, the containers would be sent to thegovernment warehouse in Ikorodu as uncleared cargos. I just showedyou the SDG to let you know what the importers are doing. Most ofthem would deliberately be doing the wrong thing and would still beshouting customs are still holding my papers.

The 48 hrs clearance of cargo, is attainable, I have said itbefore, but it will take all to do what is right. The importersshould declare rightly, pay the correct duty; the terminaloperators have good and functionable handling equipments to movethe containers and every other person involved plays his roleperfectly; believe me we can even clear in less than 48 hrs.

Considering the implications of the block stacking, what othermeasures have you employed, to ensure compliance and also ensurethat the anomaly does not upset your goals of attaining 48 hrscargo clearance?
Well, I had called a meeting with the terminal operators, someother stakeholders and the agents involved and we agreed that therent will be waved out for them because it is not the agent’sfault that his container can not be located in the terminal.

It is the inability of the concessioner to deliver the cargo. Afterthat meeting, I think the concessioners have started workingtowards waving the rent. But the unfortunate thing is that even theowners of these containers are not coming forth and there is a timegiven for goods to stay at the port. If that time elapses, I mighthave no option than to declare them uncleared cargo list (UCL),compile the list and send them to Ikorodu. The time for thesecontainers would start counting from the time of discharge from thevessel.

Could it be right to say that when an importer abandons hiscontainer, there is always the likelihood that the contents couldbe contraband?

Well, I can’t really say they are contraband now, until theexamination is done. I can not confirm that. We cannot determinetheir contents yet, they are for 100% physical examinations becausethey are in red. We have about five channels, the blue channelwhich is the fast track is for manufacturers who bring in rawmaterials and we don’t want the raw materials to be delayed.

We also have green, yellow and red. The yellow ones will go forscanning while those that are in red would go for 100% physicalexamination. All these processes are captured in the system. We arethorough in everything we do and most times it keeps dubiousimporters uncomfortable.