By Ebele Orakpo
Failure of the various agencies at the nation’s sea ports to adhere strictly to their roles has been identified as one of the reasons why Nigeria has been unable to realise the 48-hour cargo clearance at the port.

Speaking to Vanguard in Lagos, the Chairman of Santo Cristo Ltd., Customs-Licensed clearing agents, Mr. Chris Ezeoguine said all the agencies they deal with at the wharf  like Customs, NAFDAC, Standard Organisation of Nigeria, Police etc. have specific functions at the port but most of them have failed to adhere to their assigned duties as they tend to encroach on Customs job, noting that only Customs officers restrict themselves to their assigned jobs.

He said “Because of all these, there are a lot of bottle necks and that is why we cannot realise the 48-hour cargo clearance. Some think Customs is the problem but they are not. We are confronted with a lot of things and you must satisfy them before you are allowed to clear your goods,” he said.

Mr Ezeoguine said the only way to make the clearing job easier and remove the bottlenecks  is to let the placing of price on imported items be vested solely in Customs. “Let designation inspection be given 100 per cent to Customs because they have everything to carry out all the needed examinations.

Let them determine the price you will pay and you pay without having anything to do with other agencies that produce the Risk Assessment Reports (RAR) or if the services of these agencies will continue, then Customs has no business challenging whatever price they come up with and where there is discrepancy, they can settle it amongst themselves, but allow the container to go while they resolve the issue.”

He noted that if Customs is given the  power, they can decide not to assess a container until it is actually opened so that the agent will be paying once and not a situation where he pays based on the report thinking that is all, but then, he is given another bill on the ground that Customs said there was underpayment.

He stated that other agencies should be told to adhere strictly to their roles. “They should not go looking for documents meant for Customs, it delays our movement. NCS is doing a good job, no doubt. The SON is also doing well but there is what they call SON Conformity Assessment Program (SONCAP) which we pay for and is meant to have standardized goods from country of origin and we still come here and they carry the samples which were supposed to have been tested and certified.

If their contacts abroad are no longer doing a good job, then they should cancel that aspect and bring everything here. Some importers pay about $300 to get the clearance, yet, when you bring the goods here and show them the certificate, they reject it and insist on doing the tests again. So why did you allow them to issue the certificate in the first place?,” he queried adding: “The truth is that we know what to do but have refused to do it.

If government wants to curtail fraudulent activities in the sector, there is only one way of doing it. Let them come up with a policy that gives the agent some percentage of the total revenue collected through his company in a year, then the agent will ensure the importer declares everything because he knows at the end of the year, he takes a percentage of the revenue generated. That will help. What obtains now is that there is no specific service charge.

If you charge N10, the importer expects you to get your own money from that N10 and that makes some agents to cut corners in order to get something. But if there is a specific service charge, every importer knows what he is expected to pay and there will be no need for under-declaration or undervaluation. Again, if we spend the same amount of money to clear our goods, we will sell at the same price and no one will have undue advantage over another. But a situation where I spend N10,000 to clear my goods and you spend N5,000 to clear yours, you already have an advantage over me so you can afford to sell yours at a much lower rate and that encourages unethical practice.”