By Godfrey Bivbere & Chizoba Nwaizu

The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS will this week end the use of Direct Traders Input (DTI) cafes following high level of abuse the system has been subjected to.

DTI cafes have come under frequent scrutiny since they were established in 2008 for allegedly being used to perpetuate economic fraud.

National President of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA, Prince Olayiwola Shittu, told journalists in Lagos that the decision was arrived at after consultation between ANLCA and the Customs management.

He explained that licensed owners would begin to input their import clearance documents from their offices as a means of curbing the abuse which the introduction of DTIs have been subjected to.

According to him, “It is not only the issue of “use your license” but these people have perfected the act of using the cyber cafes to hack your licenses for Customs declaration and once Customs discover it, they hold on to your license and they either withdraw it from you or they suspend it. When that is done,  you come back to suffer for what you know nothing about and because they know that in the shipping company and terminal your staff signature has already been registered. Once it gets to this stage, they will no longer use your company which they used for Customs declaration. So the process of delivery of cargo, the company for Customs is different from the company for the shipping company and terminal operators.

“That is the scam that has been going on but from what we have done with customs and have been adopted by the Secretary General of the World Customs Organisation, WCO. It is only ANLCA that has interfaced with all these international organisation, and has already accepted that that is the way we are going to do our business,” he concluded.

Recall that the Comptroller General of Customs, Dikko Abdullahi, had earlier said  when the set of DTI cafes were commissioned in Lagos on July 10, 2008, that it was part of efforts to bring all stakeholders involved in cargo clearance under one community, where all processes are electronically-driven.

The Customs boss noted: “It allows Importers or their agents to access the Customs ASYCUDA server and make their declarations directly without being physically present at any Customs ports.”

But since they commenced operation, several of the cafes have been accused of being used for fraudulent practices.

Abdullahi, had vowed in 2011 to hold accountable any DTI operator through whose cafés containers were illegally removed from the port without the payment of appropriate fees and duties.

According to the Customs boss, some of the cafes had also been involved in identity theft.

Usually authoritative sources said that the NCS would henceforth grant Direct Trader Input access only to licensed Customs agents.

Efforts to get the Public Relations Officer of Customs, Wale Adeniyi and his assistant Joseph Attah, to confirm exactly when the ban on use of DTIs will commence this week proved abortive as neither of them picked up their calls when Vanguard tried to contact them on phone.