• CG Says, Pre-Shipment, PAAR, Good For Nigeria
Fresh indications are that the newly introduced Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) may not have been fully implemented by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has it claims with the present usage of Pre-Shipment by clearing agents.
A survey in major ports in Lagos yesterday witnessed the harrowing experience of clearing agents over the usage of PAAR. Naijalog gathered that the constant epileptic Customs server; has broken-down at all Customs formation nationwide creating a serious backlog of uncleared cargoes at the nations port.
The server failure which started earlier in the week continued till yesterday when the release of goods by Customs officers became impossible at all seaports, airports and land borders.
Stakeholders especially clearing agents who could not withhold their grievances maintained that the breakdown may cause large scale unrest at the various entry points, blaming the collapse on the service provider; Webb Fontaine.
Speaking, the Chairman Tin-Can Chapter of the Igbo Maritime Forum, Mr. who lamented over the current situation of things at the ports said“The server infrastructure currently being provided by Webb Fontaine to support Customs releases of cargoes has ceased functioning since yesterday” .
“You see PAAR is good but it is not introduced at the right time because you cannot introduce a system at the end of the year, if you go in there many of the uncleared cargoes came in since December and many of them may have to wait till next year. Customs could have done a trial process before its full implementation”, he added.
Expressing his fears, ” I hope the Igbo community are not been victimised because many of the goods in there are owned by the Igbos. So, I don’t know how the new system was planned, he questioned.
Corroborating him, the Tin – Can chairman of the National Council Managing Directors of Customs Licensed Agents(NCMDCLA) advised that the Nigerian Customs Service should have started with a pilot programme that will determine it status at the port before its full implementation.
According to him, “there is a very serious issue at the port now because if it is a breakdown of one or two hours you will still understand; this data are important that is why we need an integrity test for all these processes before any hand over is done. Aside that there are certain things you may want to do but the system may not accept it which is why the pilot programme is necessary”, He stated.
Earlier in the week, the Comptroller-General, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi Inde, has said that the introduction of PAAR was the best thing to have happened to the Nigerian business community.
He stated this at the 2014 International Customs Day in Abuja on Monday that the pre-shipment inspection now known as Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) had been acknowledged by international business community as innovative and highly successful.
Adding that that uniqueness of the method being applied by Nigeria had resulted in the influx of Customs officers and businessmen from foreign countries into Customs headquarters in the country to understudy them.
However he attributed the efficiency of PAAR to effective communication, adding that the service was utilising the benefits of technology in its activities to ensure that leakages were eliminated in the system.
It will be recalled that as part of the takeover of Destination Inspection (DI) scheme, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) spent about N38.5 billion for the acquisition of 50 scanning machines to be installed in strategic places in the country.
By Alli Folashade Temitope