BY IFEYINWA OBI
LAGOS- Comptroller- General of Nigera Customs Service, Alhaji Inde Abdullahi, has vowed to hold accountable, any direct traders input operator through whose cafés containers are illegally removed from the port.

Illegal removal of containers from ports across country, especially in Lagos popularly called “container flying” by licensed customs agents is perpetrated by a syndicate working within and outside the ports.

The act which is usually done in connivance with some unscrupulous importers, licensed customs agents, shipping firms, as well as Customs officers, leads to the removal of containers from the ports without  payment of appropriate fees and duties.

Abdullahi has vowed to put measures in place to check the practice.

He said this was the only way to address mysterious disappearance of containers from some terminals in the port.

The Customs boss pointed out that such café centres would not only be closed, the operators would also be prosecuted.

While pointing out that DTI cafes as licensed facilities used by licensed customs agents for imputing declarations into NCS system, and processing electronic release of goods for which all statutory charges had been paid, the Customs boss said he will no longer accept any bogus explanations from anyone that an illegal removal of a containers was attributable to the activities of a syndicate, which  specializes in password identity theft to hack into the systems of DTI operators to perpetuate their acts.