08 November 2014, Lagos – The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has raked in about N36.7 billion into the federation account from the one per cent Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme (CISS) charges. The money is the amount NCS has so far generated since it took over the work of the three scanner service providers (SSPs) in December 2014 following the revocation of the SSPs contract by the federal government.
The CISS charges were on imports into Nigeria hitherto paid into the coffers of the SSPs which were allocated different seaports, airports and land borders across the country.
Customs officials
The SSPs, namely Cotecna Destination Inspection (CDIL), SGS Nigeria Limited and Global Scan Limited were in charge of issuing risk assessment reports (RAR) under the aegis of the destination inspection (DI) scheme.
Following the takeover by NCS, the service introduced Pre-Arrival Risk Assessment Report (PAAR) to replace RAR.
Area Project Manager, NCS, Apapa Area Command, Mr. Yusuf Malanta
said since the advent of PAAR, the NCS had been fine tuning the process of its issuance to ensure that trade is facilitated.
According to him, as part of the efforts, NCS has been working round the clock in three shifts of officers at the PAAR ruling centre in Abuja which has led to an average of 1,000 to 1,200 PAARs being generated daily.
He explained that with PAAR, the importers know in advance and can predict the duties and taxes payable on their consignments even before examination.
He said: “During the era of the service providers, it is very difficult for an importer after submitting his document to know when the documents will be out. You cannot also determine the duty or amount you are going to pay and what time you will exit your cargo at the port but with PAAR all of that has been eliminated.
“If you are honest in your declaration and submission to your bank, sincerely speaking before you get back to the office from where you are coming from, you will definitely get an alert on your mobile handset or email address that your PAAR has been accepted or rejected unlike before when you don’t have contact with your bank and the service providers can’t talk to them. You will be stuck between the bank and the service providers and the bank will not accept talking with you, so you see the beauty of PAAR platform.”
– This Day
