By Ifeyinwa Obi
COMPTROLLER of Customs in charge of Apapa Area Command, Abdulkadir Azarema, has dismissed claims that e-payment is frustrating payment of custom duties, describing the process as a boost to efforts of Nigeria Customs Service,NCS, at meeting revenue targets.

duties, describing the process as a boost to efforts of Nigeria Customs Service,NCS, at meeting revenue targets.
Azarema, who disclosed this to CustomWatch also noted that his command has employed more controlled and efficient measures  to avoid  underpayment.

According to him, “e-payment is very good, very efficient, very effective, we have not been having problems. Once payment is made, immediately the bank accepts the payment. It shows.. and you paid here and then, it goes to the CBN immediately there is still remittance, so everything is syncronise and it’s working well, there is no problems.

“we have employed more controlled measure and efficient to ensure that they are not underpaying… and those will be recover  are recovered promptly and many things like I told you  earlier a lot of vessels are being transferred to Muni Port. At a point, I didn’t want allow them to be transferred because it will affect the volume of cargoes of which we are to collect revenue. But headquarters has asked me not to restrict the transfer because we want easy flow of cargo.”

In addition he said, “We always use intelligent information from all source, standard examination, another, skynet is always there to reveal anything concealed. Of recent, we have seized about 7 containers, five of them furniture based on the intelligent information, we were able to intercept them and they were taken to the custom unit.