Vincent Toritseju
Lagos — The newly-introduced Vehicle Identification Number, VIN, by the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, is currently tearing the Nigerian maritime sector apart as importers and licensed Customs agents vehemently oppose the policy.
Freight forwarders partially suspended a protest against the policy to await the outcome of a meeting with the management of the Nigeria Customs Service in Lagos.
But, prior to the partial suspension of the protest, the weeklong strike by the freight forwarders grounded port activities in Lagos with the Customs management trying to make the freight forwarders see reasons for the introduction of the new import policy.
The Customs appealed to the public to embrace the new vehicle identity number valuation system it recently introduced for assessing the duty payable on imported vehicles.
The appeal came two days into a strike embarked on by another group, the licensed customs agents, at the Tin Can Island Port Complex, Lagos, to protest the new policy.
Members of the Association of Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA, said they would not back down from their protests over the controversial policy, which, they said, has increased the cost of clearing an imported vehicle through the port.
“Today, Tuesday, is our second day of protest and we will continue the protest until the NCS authorities tell us what we want to hear from them. We are not saying that the policy is bad, but the implementation is our problem.
“A vehicle duty that we pay N200,000 before, we now pay one million naira because of the policy. That is not right. They should go back to the status quo,” chairman of ANLCA task force, Rilwan Amuni, said.
However, Customs spokesman, Timi Bomodi, said the VIN valuation policy was an innovation designed to harmonise and make the system transparent, urging agents and importers to embrace it.
In a statement, Bomodi said the new system uses “artificial intelligence” to pull together trade data representing a range of values consistent for each car make and model using the vehicle identification number.
He stated that with the new policy, importers that have valid tax identity numbers can do self-assessment and pay duty by themselves.
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