– Advocates cancellation
Vincent Toritseju
Lagos — The Nigerian Maritime Law Association, NMLA, have decried the gross abuse of the Temporary Import Permit by operators in both the maritime and oil and gas industries, while calling on the government to cancel it.
Speaking at the second edition of the breakfast meeting hosted by the association in Lagos, a former Public Secretary of the group, Mr. Adedoyin Afun said that beyond the cancelation, the idea behind the advocate is reduce the duty payable on vessels or scrap duty payment on such cargoes.
Afun said that the concession and intervention given to the aviation sector by allowing operators tp own and lease aircrafts, should be extended to the maritime industry.
He also said that ny harmonizing the TIP, it will allow Nigerians own newer vessels as against the old scraps that litters the nation’s coastal waters.
He said: “Really looking at it from a future perspective, I know the former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administrative and Safety Agency, NIMASA, was pushing and was waiting the presidential assent for it to be gazetted.
Because looking at the aviation experience, if you do not gazette it, Customs will not answer you. That is why you see a lot of airlines owing aircrafts or leasing a few aircrafts because of that weaver for aircrafts and parts.
Similarly, Mr. Chuks Nwana of Admiralty Law, said that when the law was enacted, it was supposed to take care of heavy equipment, specialized and oil and gas equipment that can be used for a particular period of time and eventually take it out.
“I know from experience that the TIP is thoroughly abused, and the protocol is that if their TIP on a vessel and the vessel goes outside Nigeria’s territorial waters, that is the end of the TIP.
“It really ought to be so because you are not supposed to take it out, it is temporary importation, it should not leave Nigeria. But what you do have is that a lot of vessels on TIP go outside Nigeria’s territorial waters, lift petroleum products, come back and they are still on TIP. That is not the way it was meant to work, if you leave Nigeria, you forfeit the TIP.
And so, like you said, “a lot of Customs officers make a lot of money, they allow go and they allow come”.