- Smugglers conniving with corrupt Customs’ officials – Senate
- We lack equipment to uncover dangerous consignments – Customs
- Fix collapsed scanners, security experts tell fg
The last may not have been heard about the recurrent face-off between the National Assembly and the Nigeria Customs Service as the Senate is set to begin an investigation into the smuggling of contraband worth N11.4trillion through the nation’s porous borders in 2017.
Investigations by our correspondent revealed that the value of goods and items smuggled into Nigeria increased from N5.7 trillion as at the end of 2016 to N11.4 trillion by the end of 2017, leaving unanswered questions around the Customs’ claims of efficiency.
A considerable amount of revenue to be collected by the Federal Government is being lost in addition to other adverse impacts that the smuggled items cause to local industry. The act cannot be achieved without the cooperation and connivance of corrupt officials, including those in the law enforcement agencies
Findings also revealed that, while the goods and items smuggled into Nigeria through about 1,500 legal and illegal border routes increased from over N2 trillion to over N4 trillion between 2016 and 2017, assorted goods and items illegally imported via the seaports also rose by over 100 per cent, from N4.35 trillion to N8.7 trillion, within the same period.
A perusal of statistics by the NCS, exclusively obtained by our correspondent at the weekend, indicated that the seeming craze for smuggled goods and items witnessed a boost in 2017, despite the advertised zero tolerance for smuggling by Customs under the current administration.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff, Senator Hope Uzodinma, told our correspondent that the legislators had various documents on the increase in the value of smuggled goods into the country from the World Bank and other bodies, and would soon invite the NCS Comptroller-General, Col. Hameed Ali (retd), and the Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, over the matter.
Uzodinma said that the amount of revenue being lost to smuggling in terms of the revenue that should accrue to the Federal Government had become mindboggling, expressing regrets that the annual turnover raked in by smugglers was more than Nigeria’s annual budget.
This is in spite of the public’s complaints of recklessness by Customs’ men in the discharge of their anti-smuggling duties.
He said, “We are investigating the contributing factors to the development and will soon ask questions on all allegations leveled against the NCS and airports officials because it is better to give him a fair hearing on the controversies.
“A considerable amount of revenue to be collected by the Federal Government is being lost in addition to other adverse impacts that the smuggled items cause to local industry. The act cannot be achieved without the cooperation and connivance of corrupt officials, including those in the law enforcement agencies.”
Recall that the NCS boss and the National Assembly have, in the recent past, been at loggerheads over certain issues bearing on Ali’s leadership style at the Customs.
Last year, the Senate summoned the Customs boss to explain the rationale for some of his policies. But Ali played hide and seek with the lawmakers by initially ignoring their summons for insisting he appeared in the uniform of the comptroller general. When he finally did, Ali did so in mufti, claiming that no law compelled him to wear the Customs uniform. The senators promptly dismissed him and ordered him to reappear the following week.
Also, in January, the standoff between the Senate and Ali worsened as the Customs boss took the lawmakers to the cleaners, lecturing them on how to imbibe correct work etiquette and human relations.
The incident occurred at the NCS Headquarters in Abuja, during a visit by the Senate Ad hoc Committee on Economic Waste, headed by Senator Dino Melaye.
The lawmaker had earlier provoked a foul reaction from Ali, when he expressed dismay that the Customs boss failed to come down from his office to welcome members of his committee on visitation to the premises, while preferring to meet them at the conference room.
While the goods and items smuggled into Nigeria through about 1,500 legal and illegal border routes increased from over N2 trillion to over N4 trillion between 2016 and 2017, assorted goods and items illegally imported via the seaports also rose by over 100 per cent, from N4.35 trillion to N8.7 trillion, within the same period
Melaye, before reading his prepared speech, had told the Customs boss that protocol had long been established with statutory bodies like Customs, Immigration, Prisons and others, over the years, and wondered why such etiquette was not accorded the committee.
In a swift reaction, the Customs CG told the Senate delegation that the NCS had its own protocol, which was different from other public establishments’.
Ali told the committee that the NCS would not want to be dictated to on matters of etiquette and protocol.
He had said, “We have our own protocol as regards receiving visitors like you. I don’t need to come downstairs to receive you just as nobody in the Senate or House of Representatives has ever come out to receive us anytime we visit the National Assembly.
So, there is no breach of protocol for not coming down to welcome you since appropriate officers have been assigned to do so.
“Our protocol is our protocol and should be allowed to be.
In fact, by way of etiquette, it is the committee that is supposed to come to my office first on arrival and not just come straight to the conference room.”
With the latest plan by the Senate to once again summon the Customs boss over the revenue lost to the high volume of smuggling of contraband through the nation’s borders, despite his claims of experience and efficiency, the perennial face-off between the lawmakers and Ali may take a new dimension.
Our correspondent, however, learnt that, while the men of the NCS intercepted about 1,700 vehicles at various locations in Seme, Lagos; Idiroko, Ogun; Shaki axis, Oyo; Iseyin axis, Kwara; Mfun, Cross River; Mallam Fatori, Borno; Jibia, Katsina; Kano, and Jigawa states, among others, the document revealed that over 5,000 luxury armoured vehicles found their ways through the same border routes into the country, compared with 2,000 recorded in 2016.
Some of the assorted vehicles smuggled into the country are 2017 models of Lexus Sports Utility Vehicles, Toyota Land Cruisers, Toyota Hilux, Range Rover SUVs, Rolls Royce, Cadillac SUVs, 14-seater buses, Space buses, and trucks, among others.
Aside from vehicles, other smuggled items in 2017 were thousands of 50kg bags of parboiled rice, worth over N2 trillion, millions of cartons of imported frozen products worth over N2 trillion; thousands of (30 litres) vegetable oil, worth about N1 trillion; scores of trucks of unprocessed teak wood, bales of used clothing, Indian hemp, and used tyres, among others.
SPONSORS DISCLOSED
A resident of Idiroko, an Ogun State border town, who pleaded anonymity, alleged that some Customs officials and some community leaders in Idiroko were behind the menace in the area.
According to the father of six, who quit driving smuggled vehicles and goods after he was arrested and allegedly abandoned by his employer, “one of the community leaders, who resides in Ota, engages scores of drivers and pays us N10,000 per trip or more, depending on the driving skill.”
Aside from the wages, the source added that his former employer also usually gave his drivers a certain percentage of the value of the vehicles sold by them.
He said, “A driver can earn as much as N50,000 on a weekly basis, depending on how smart you are and the state of the road. When we observed that the Ota route was tough and no longer safe, owing to the presence of some patriotic NCS officials, we switched to the Ilogbo route. The residents know our boss very well because he has fixed an important infrastructure in the town.”
When our correspondent asked the ex-convict if the NCS officials knew his former boss and other smugglers, he said, “Of course, they know the sponsors of the illegal business and the drivers they use. Before some of them are transferred, we pay them directly as they charge depending on the value and model of the car. When some of them are stubborn, we notify our employer, who calls their leader directly, before they release us with apologies, most times.”
Another ex-smuggler, who also pleaded anonymity, owing to the sensitivity of the matter, blamed the development on the porous state of the Nigerian borders.
According to him, the absence of men of the NCS on most of the border routes, especially in the Northern part of the country, aid the illegal operations of the smugglers.
He said, “From Baga to Mallam Fatori in Borno State, we usually don’t see any Customs official, except soldiers from Niger, Chad, and Nigeria, in about five hours drive in the untarred desert road. We only import vehicles with auxiliary gears like SUVs from such routes.
“There are many unofficial routes used by smugglers, because our land borders are porous and are a gateway for economic loss to the nation because of the undocumented transactions taking place in these border areas. There are unhindered smuggling of adulterated goods from that route, which the government has to curb before it is too late.”
MANUFACTURERS REACT
Stakeholders in the manufacturing sector are not happy with the development, as they allege that the negligence on the part of both the Federal and state governments and the activities of the smugglers remain clogs in the wheel of the real sector’s production.
The Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association argued that the development cost the nation’s textile industry about $325 million every year, due to evasion of Customs duty and Value Added Tax by smugglers of textile materials.
The Chairman, NTMA, Mr. Abiodun Ogunkoya, disclosed that over 90 per cent of the over $2 billion worth of goods (textile materials) that flooded the nation every year were smuggled into the country through the borders, seaports and airports.
“Our findings have revealed that some fabrics produced in China have trademarks of Nigerian manufacturers and fake Standard Organisation of Nigeria logos printed on the labels. They are almost everywhere across the country.
FIX COLLAPSED SCANNERS, CURB ARMS SMUGGLING – SECURITY EXPERTS
Against the backdrop of this development, security experts have, therefore, tasked the Federal Government to fix the collapsed scanners at the seaports in the country, as they revealed that such a loophole was being explored by illegal arm smugglers, whose activities had continued to boost the influx of illegal arms into the country.
The Managing Director, Fortified Security and Safety Services, Mr. John Adams, who described the illicit trade as a threat to national security, told The Point that about 300 million illegal light weapons had been smuggled into Nigeria as at the end of the third quarter of 2017.
According to him, a report he obtained from the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa, revealed that over 70 per cent of the illicit small arms in West Africa were in Nigeria.
“Some of the weapons are said to have originated in Mali and Libya and their presence here is a threat to peaceful co-existence, especially as the 2019 general elections draw near. More of them may come in from the international airports, seaports, borders around Saki, Oyo; Sokoto, Mile 2 axis, Lagos, and Ogun states,” he said.
Another security expert, Capt Joseph Babatunde (retd), said, “There is the urgent need to safeguard and secure our nation from the influx of illegal arms, ammunition, narcotics, dirty bombs, unwholesome items and weapons of mass destruction through the implementation of the provision of the International Cargo Security Agreement.
“The Federal Government must constitute a committee of trade procedure experts urgently, because that is the only way to address the shortfall in the import process, which constitutes bottlenecks and impedes the component of trading across the border on the ease of doing business.”
WE LACK EQUIPMENT TO UNCOVER CERTAIN CONSIGNMENTS – NCS
Reacting to the allegations on the inability of the Customs to intercept arms, ammunition and certain smuggled goods at the seaports and border points, the Public Relations Officer, NCS, Mr. Joseph Attah, explained that lack of equipment put the service under pressure to discover dangerous consignments.
To address the hurdle, he explained that the NCS went the extra mile in intercepting dangerous cargoes as it had adopted 100 per cent examination at the ports, adding that the process was time-consuming and “very stressful.”
He explained, “In the absence of equipment to discover these illegal goods, we are increasingly relying on intelligence to nip the dangerous imports in the bud.
“At our land borders, the porosity of the borders is another challenge, especially in the dry season; everywhere is road for the smugglers.”
Attah added that low compliance level on the part of importers was another major obstacle facing the Customs.
“Most of the smugglers do not declare the true content of their consignments; it is through rigorous examination by Customs operatives that these consignments are exposed. People like to bring in prohibited consignments and then make false declarations,”
he said.
