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By Steve Agbota
A Maritime consultant and national coordinator of Kayfair International Hospitality Foundation, Dr Farinto Kayode, has petitioned the World Customs Organisation (WCO), over the plans to increase agent licence fee by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) from N215,000 to about N4 million.
In a protest letter titled; “Clearing and Forwarding Practice in Nigeria: A Herculean Task, Not in Conformity with International Best Practice,” sent to the secretary general of WCO and obtained by Daily Sun, Farinto detailed other issues as they affect the practice of Customs agents in the nation’s ports.
He said that every company that acts as a Customs brokerage firm is licensed by the board of Nigeria Customs Service, saying that an annual renewal fees N215,000 is paid to get the license renewed, which is equivalent to about $160.dollars while in Ghana, the authority charges only 60ghana cedis to renew for them.
However, he said the NCS recently announced its intention to now charge about N4 million for the annual renewal fee, saying it is an existential threat to clearing and forwarding profession as it will only make money bags (foreigners) to hijack the profession.
“This, if implemented , will send about 70 percent of indigenous practitioners out of this job. We hereby check the Council indulgence to intervene on this matter. This is the second time I’m writing a letter to WCO on the issues of our renewal and I have been invited to the 2026 WCO event at Abu Dhabi, where I have concluded plans to present the hard copies of the three protest letters to the secretary general of WCO.
“I will give Customs cooperation on the issue of B-Odogwu because it is our importers that are losing money and we are the one paying all the charges. There is no even explanation or apology from anybody when this system was having issues, which is an aberration” he said.
However, he called on the Council to intervene on these issues affecting the practice of freight forwarding profession as regards to the services provided by the Customs in the country.
“I am delighted to be given this opportunity to walk you through Customs brokerage (clearing and forwarding) practice in Nigeria. This practice is a herculean task in Nigeria, viz a viz many customs procedures that agents go through to ensure cargos are cleared from the ports and delivered to their consignee,” he said.
Pre-arrival of cargo documents, he explained that six principles which must be followed, adding that Nigeria is operating a destination inspection of cargos and before now, exactly 2013.pre-arrival assessment reports coined PAAR was introduced.
He explained that it serves as a mandatory electronic document detailing imported goods and duty payable before the arrival of the cargo(es) before pre-arrival assessment report (PAAR) is issued, it goes through about six stages at the PAAR ruling center of Nigeria Customs service after the final documents are uploaded by the various commercial banks.
According to him, amongst these stages are classification stages, valuation stages, where on many occasions NCS adjust people’s value without recourse to the importers or his agents.
“There are two types of Aberration notice at this stage. One, NCS adjusts your invoice value, by jacking it up arbitrarily which negates the Article VII of the General agreement on Tariff and Trade of the WTO.as also domesticated as valuation law in Nigeria and two, when eventually PAAR is issued, importers and agents will be embarrassed to see that, another PAAR has been issued which nullified the first one for no just cause and that the first one has been canceled.
“This is normally done to arbitrarily jack up the duties payable. The above two reasons are a big embarrassment to the nation, which negates the principle of valuation that states sis conditions, which must be followed sequentially and for anyone to be applied, it must be in agreement with the consignee. It is also an Aberration.
In the letter, he also raised the issues of the manifest submission by shipping companies’ agents, declaration of goods on single goods administration, trade facilitation agreement, authorized economic operator (AEO), and the role of non-intrusive machine/scanners.
