Guardian

CRITICISMS have continued to trail the new customs bill as stakeholders have described it as “defective.”

The National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA) said it in a letter to the presidency few days ago that the bill if eventually passed by the senate will have negative impacted on the nation’s economy.

In the petition signed by its national president, Lucky Eyis Amiwero,the association contanded that the qualification, tenure and the body responsible for the discipline of the Customs Comptroller General were not  stipulated in the bill.

“The bill lack the most important ingredient of control mechanism for the customs” he said, adding the customs could become a political entity under the new dispensation due to the structure which negates the principle of international best practice.

Amiwero said more importantly, the president of the country was striped of power to prohibit certain import under Section 56(2) saying that was not good for the country’s manufacturing sector, which has no representative in the board of the Nigeria Customs Service under the new law.

“The effect of the new bill to manufacturing sector is that MAN is not legally a member of the Nigeria Customs Board and they were excluded in all policy with regard to export, import and manufacturing, the mechanism to grow the local industry through incentives will be hampered by the drive for revenue. The prohibition/restriction on import and export will be used as a tool for dire for revenue, which will create distortion in the economic environment as final determination of dispute on trade now reside in the customs without any independent body. This is a contravention of the provisions of GATT and WCD Kyoto convention on dispute resolution.”

The council also disagreed with the promoters on the new customs bill on the establishment of a laboratory by the customs service, saying such a facility would be duplicating the function of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control empowered by appropriate Act to conduct tests and ensure compliance with standard specification.

“The Duplication will create some cost element, procedure, process and conflict in the clearance process between the Custom, NAFDAC and other agencies.

On the abolition of mandatory pre-shipment inspection or post-shipment inspection service, the council said pre-shipment inspection was contained in GATT (Agreement on pre-shipment inspection) and the WCO safe “framework for standards to secure global trade outbound security inspection on high-risk containers. The concept of WCO safe frame work is to examine consignment before loading on board, which is pre-shipment inspection process, which is adopted globally due to security implication.”

On the creation of integrated revenue board in line with the global best practice, the council said such board was welcome because of its inherent benefits.

According to the council, establishment of integrated revenue board as stipulated in the new customs bill, would remove the fragmentation of domestic tax administration, provide holistic approach to domestic tax and customs administration, promote efficiency in the collection of revenue and equitable distribution of tax burden, provide one-stop service for tax payers, enhance revenue mobilization through the use of a common data source, and provide effectiveness through the use of shared services within the system.