Customs Agents: Destination Inspection Responsible for Illegal Arms Importation

Customs agents in the country have expressed concern that Nigeria’s import and export system as well as the economy are vulnerable to terrorist exploitation owing to its cargo inspection regime known as destination inspection (DI).

The National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), the umbrella body of customs agents, stated this in a petition to the Chairman House Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff.

NCMDLCA in the petition signed by its National President, Mr. Lucky Amiwero, said DI contravenes the WCOSafe Frame Work of Standard to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade (WCO Safe Framework).

The DI regime process, they added, allows the influx of unwholesome goods into the country, such as arms, ammunitions, contraband and the reduction of revenue, pointing out that this exposes the nation to serious security threats.

According to the customs agents, “Before the event of September 2011, Customs authority were responsible for the clearance of imported goods at the port of destination. The event of 9/11 precipitated a change in cargo inspection from destination to now at manufacturing site of port of loading, due to monitoring of supply chain mechanism of unwholesome products and revenue manipulation at destination.

“Nigeria is a signatory to the convention of the WCO Safe Framework of Standard to secure and facilitate global trade, which provides multilayered set of standards for container/cargo security, developed to enhance security, increase revenue and facilitate international trade,” they said.

They stated the urgent need for Nigeria as a contracting party to the global Multilayered Security protocol the WCO SAFE Framework of Standards, to comply with the protocol by reducing the illicit-cross boarder movement of unwholesome goods into the country

“There is the urgent need to initiate the process of memorandum of understanding (MOU) with various countries, where cargo throughput of import is high e.g China, Turkey, India, etc, for the agreement of Mu- tual Administrative Assistant for collaborative activities on the prevention, investigation, repression and transnational crime as contained in various conventions.

“There is the urgent need to repair the collapsed scanners in the ports that is the core on Security tool to reduce the influx of illicit Goods in the Country. There is the urgent need to Safeguard and Secure our nation from the influx of arms, ammunition, narcotics, dirty bomb, unwholesome items and weapon of mass destruction (WMD) through the implementation of the provision of international Cargo Security Agreement,” the agents said.

They also stressed the need to accommodate various

by these politicians. Most of these concessionaires owe us but whenever we request for these debts to be paid otherwise we sanction them, we would get a phone call from top government officials, asking us to give the person more time. It has been like this over the years,” the source said.

The source also told THISDAY that FAAN collects the bulk of its revenues from foreign airlines, which pays passenger services charge of $50 from each passenger and lamented that most domestic airlines do not pay for the services rendered to them by FAAN.

“What they will not tell you is that the whole of the airports have been given out. None is under the control of FAAN. Many of the instructions we receive come from the Ministry. Contrary to what people think, FAAN is not generating so much money; yet, what we get is taken away. Look at the area of cargo. What we are getting now is four million metric tonnes a month. When you multiply that number with N7 per ton you will get about N1.5 billion per annum. This gives us about N90 million monthly. But when the economy was robust we used to generate about N5 billion,” one of FAAN’s officials added.