Follow Us on Google
Steve Agbota, [email protected] 08033302331
Nigeria Customs Service manual processing of auction of overtime cargoes seized in the course of it functions across its various Commands is indeed creating a huge economic and revenue loss for the country. The is so because manual processes are according experts lack transparency, has tendencies for corruption and favouritism.
In July 2017, the Comptroller-General of the NCS, Hameed Ali, introduced the electronic auction platform (app.trade.gov.ng/e-auction) popularly known as ‘e-auction’ as part of efforts to sanitise the system.
According to Ali, the introduction of the e-auction process was predicated on the need to eliminate abuses associated with manual auction process of the past.
Part of the reasons the Customs CG introduced the e-auction then was to decongest the Customs warehouses which were overflowing with vehicles seized from smugglers in different entry points across the country.
As at then, the e-auction was said to be recorded little progress due to some glitches being experienced with the digital technology.
Ironically, before the e-auction collapsed or was halted by NCS in 2018 due to banks’ e-wallet challenges and other technical issues, the last phase of the platform had only 806 vehicles uploaded on the e-auction website with 753 bidders, which generated about N346.1 million.
Since the platform was shut, there have not been any auctioning of the seized vehicles.
Daily Sun’s effort to ascertain the functionality of the Customs’ e-auction website site: “app.trade.gov.ng/e-auction”, recently, showed it has since collapsed and not functioning. The message pop up on the webiste read, “Dear user, the requested page was not found (error 404).”
As at the time of this report, the warehouses at various Customs’ Commands both at the seaports and land borders are full to the brim with seized vehicles worth over N70 billion rotting away. The situation was so bad that the Customs Training College, Ikeja was recently turned into warehouse to stock some of seized vehicles due to lack of space at government warehouses.
A visit to some of these warehouses shows that thousands of exotic cars now rotting away include; Mercedes Benz G wagon and various Mercedes Benz 4matic models, Hummer, Mercedes Benz, Range Rover Evolution, Ford Edge, Toyota Land Cruiser, Highlander, Toyota Hilux, various models of Lexus, Porsche cars and a host of other sport utility vehicles (SUVs) from Ford and Toyota brands. There were also a variety of trucks, salon cars and buses.
On the other hand, over 6500,000 vehicles are also decaying at various seaports alone, taking over the space that could have been used for incoming goods, a good reason for the government effort to further decongest them.
Clearing agents operating at the ports and land borders described the situation as unfortunate as government has failed to auction the vehicles to free up space at its various warehouses in the country.
They wondered why those exotic vehicles would be allowed to rot away when millions of Nigerians are seeking to buy them while the Federal Government is going about looking for funds to borrow to finance its annual budget. “It is unpatriotic and a waste of resources for allowing those seized vehicles to waste away,” stakeholders stated.
Feilding questions from newsmen recently on why most of the vehicles seized were abandoned to rot away, the Comptroller General of Customs, Hameed Ali, explained that seized vehicles cannot be automatically forfeited to government, but have to go through court processes before they can be disposed.
According to him, the court processes take longer time than necessary, which explains why the seized vehicles are left for long at the warehouse.
He said: “Nigerians must understand that the fact that we effect seizure does not automatically mean forfeiture. We go through a legal process to get it forfeited to government before we can dispose it. Sometimes, it takes longer than necessary for us to get them forfeited by the court.
“That is why you see some of these cars remain here for many months because we have to go through the court. We first detain the vehicles, we then issue seizure notice and if the person cannot defend the vehicle ownership, we will go to court. It is then left for the court to either grant it at a go or take their time.”
