By Steve Agbota, Lagos
The Association of National Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has said that Nigeria lost more than 300,000 jobs while over 3000 businesses have been shut down due to border closure, which was effected since August 2019 across the country.
The President of the Association, Chief Tony Nwabunike, disclosed at the inauguration of the ANLCA compliance team in Lagos, he urged the Federal Government to reopen all approved borders, particularly in the southwest and other areas with less threat of insurgency, in order to allow trading activities to resume with its accompanying benefits of economic growth and job creation.
He added that the reduction in transborder trade is contributing to the weakness of the nation’s currency, hence urgent action should be taken to revive the naira.
“Keeping these borders where there are no insecurity issues continually closed is a sign of non-compliance with the Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS) and African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) treaties, which we signed.
“Because compliance concerns all of us; Nigeria, her agencies and private business operators all have a responsibility to be compliant. Let us be reminded of these trade agreements. And as a country, we should not be signing treaties and agreements we won’t comply with. Let us all build a culture of national integrity in all fronts at home and in the eyes of the global trading community,” he added.
However, President inaugurated a compliance team, led by Alhaji Lameen Aliyu to help in battling non-compliance among officers and stakeholders in the industry.
He explained that non-compliance in the sector has manifested through under-declaration, undervaluation, false declaration, deliberate application of wrong Harmonised System (HS) Code to evade accurate duty payments and outright smuggling, which have resulted in seizures and arrests.
According to him, over 30 per cent of revenue collected by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) was achieved via interventions such as demand notices, which are, most times, fallouts of non-compliance.
He added that Customs administration subgroups like Federal Operations Unit, Strike Force, Customs Police and other agencies that chase down released containers to repeat what had been done in the ports, or police departments who sometimes waylay certified containers for arrest, thereby causing avoidable delays and increasing cost of doing business.
“This tells us that the ‘resident officers’ inside the ports are not compliant. After police participate in the examination of cargoes another police and other interventionist groups chase the same released container to repeat what has been done in a display.
“While these interventions have yielded good outcomes with discoveries of concealments and under-declaration, my office is inundated with unconfirmed allegations of bribe demand from some agents of the government,” he added.
He also condemned these activities, as they negate the principle of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT), which aims at promoting international trade by eliminating barriers.