By Godfrey Bivbere

THE National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents, NCMDLCA, has blamed the failed usage of scanners at the nation’s ports at end of the contract of the former Destination Inspection Service Providers, DISPs, on the inability of the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, and the Federal Ministry of Finance, FMoF, to enforce the later part of the contract with the DISPs.

The DISPs – Cotecna, Global Scan System, SGS and Web Frontaine, were given a seven year contract for the provision scanning services, train Customs officers, provide and maintain Information and Communication Technology, ICT, risk management, classification, valuation and issue risk assessment report in Nigerian seaports, airports and land borders.

Speaking on the issue, the National President of the NCMDLCA, Lucky Amiwero, said that there was a clause in the agreement which makes mandatory for the DISPs to stay around for six months after the expiration of the contract to ensure that the scanners continue to function.

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Amiwero explained that it is the failure of both Customs and the FMoF to enforce that aspect of the contract that resulted in the collapse of almost all the scanners at the nation’s seaports and border posts. Reminded that officers and men of the service were trained before the expiration of the contract, the NCMDLCA boss explained that the training extended to the Customs officers was only operational and not engineering.

He stressed that it is the engineering which has to do with the maintenance of the scanners that the service should have focused on. He also blamed the former comptroller general of the service, Abdullahi Dikko, who was in a rush for the service to take over the functions of the DISPs even when they were not ready.

The DISPs contract was to have ended on December 31, 2012 with the service providers handing over operations to Nigeria Customs but was extended to June 31, 2013 on the basis that Customs still needs to put its house in order before it could take over the scheme.

The DISPs, in line with the contract terms, provided 22 mobile and fixed scanners across the viable entry points of approved Customs designated areas and trained about 6,788 Customs officers to be able to take over from them.

They also provided an ICT network backbone that enabled Customs to deliver e-Customs services to the trading public, including the development of the Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System, NICIS, software application as a platform for interfacing with other stakeholders in the trade supply chain to share information and intelligence on import, export and transit goods.

Vanguard