By Ruth Sunday
The Founder, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr. Boniface Aniebonam has commended the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) management for suspending VIN – Valuation engagement for one month.
Dr. Aniebonam who made the commendation in a statement on Monday expressed gladness over the quick reaction and high recovery rate of the Nigeria Customs Service to enable clearance of trapped vehicles out of the Customs ports.
He considers as divine the ability and capacity of leadership of any administration to respond positively to the request and cries of distress situation.
“I congratulate the service for the suspension of VIN Valuation application for one month in favour of trade and humanity.
“This underscores the continued efforts on the partof the Nigeria Customs Service to exercise restraint over the application of Customs laws bothering on matters of untrue declaration,” he added.
He posited that the inherent problems of untrue declaration for Customs purposes may not be adding value to Customs modernization
Dr. Aniebonam expressed hope that Customs would endeavour to engage the trading public and the freight forwarding practitioners on matters of Customs statutory functions.
According to him, “this is because Customs laws are very strict over revenue related matters. The need for knowledge cannot be overemphasized because Customs duty collection is highly technical.
“The Communication gap between the Customs administration and the stakeholders are avoidable.”
The Founder of NAGAFF who is also the National Chairman Board of Trustees of NEW Nigeria Peoples’ Party (NNPP) stressed the need for Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) and Customs administration to come together to develop capacity of freight forwarders, failure at which will result to withdrawal of services in the Customs port due to lack of knowledge.
” The buckpass between the customs and the freight forwarders over non communication of vin VALUATION application is most unfortunate.
” I do hope that the public relations department of the Nigeria customs service shall raise the bar to undertake its corporate responsibility. This is because communication is a tool for trade facilitation in customs operations.
“While congratulating the service for taking a popular decision it is my belief that within one month grace period the vin VALUATION duty assessment shall be based on agreed customs value assessment – ACV .
“I believe that most of the issues raised by the stakeholders would have been resolved amicably. Let me just remind the customs that under destination inspection or customs examination if you like the most critical component of operations are the customs examiners and the valuation unit.
“Any other action being taken are mere trade facilitation responsibilities and general administration,” he stated
He reminded the CGC is once again reminded of his mandate to restructure, reform and enhance revenue collection functions of the service, adding thathe prevalence of multiple trade alerts, the avoidable redundancy of officers at the zonal offices and the multiple intervention forces on our highways presents a picture of trade and commerce being under seige in Nigeria.
“It is my hope that the customs management will raise the bar of excellent performance to power investment and development in Nigeria 2022. Dr Aniebonam founder nagaff,” he concludes