By Emmanuella Anokam
The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), retired Col. Hameed Ali, on Sunday cited restructuring, reforms and revenue generation as key factors responsible for the impressive performance of the NCS.

Ali, who made the disclosure at a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) forum in Abuja, said that the three items were the mandates given to him by President Muhammadu Buhari on his appointment.

He said that the NCS under his leadership was focusing on aligning the NCS’s operation with international best practice through the mandate.

“We developed many standard operating procedures to achieve the mandate, all the officers became accustomed to restructuring.

“Training was no longer by chance but by schedule and a fundamental thing. No training, no promotion.

“So we renovated our college, developed a curriculum for training of our officers. For us to do the best we must train and continue to train.’’

He, however, described the NCS as a highly technical organisation, governed by laws, including the World Customs Organisation (WCO) laws, Civil Service laws and laws enacted by the National Assembly.

According to him, the approval of certain recommendations by the president also enhanced the remuneration and welfare of the organisation.

The comptroller-general also disclosed that he was working towards providing office and residential accommodation for NCS workers.

According to him, in the next one or two years, officers will no longer stay in rented apartments, especially those working in the borders.

Ali noted that the NCS had also empowered some commands and created enabling environments for them to operate effectively.

By Mustapha Sumaila
The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), retired Col. Hameed Ali, says the Nigerian judiciary is a critical element in the fight against corruption.

Speaking at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) forum in Abuja on Sunday, Ali noted that enforcement of relevant rules and regulations was also critical in the fight.

“For corruption to be fought to a standstill in the country, there are components that must work effectively.’’

He noted that without effective judicial support in the anti- corruption fight, no matter how well a case was investigated, such a case would die.

The customs boss, however, lamented that at the moment, most politically exposed cases were still pending in courts after several years.

Ali said that President Muhammadu Buhari had the zeal and commitment to fight corruption but that he had faced severe challenges with the system.

He said the present administration had succeeded in instilling into the conscience of people that corruption was bad.

“Corruption is an area we are still grappling with. It is an area we need to do a holistic views of our system. If the judiciary does not work, there is no way anything can happen.

“So we must overhaul our judiciary and overhaul the enforcement and if these two work efficiently, corruption will be fought.

“One of our strong pillars of our promise is that we are going to fight corruption and of course, you know the president is somebody that has penchant for fighting corruption. He is incorruptible.

“His stance on corruption, especially when he was the head of state made him standout as somebody who fights corruption.

“Our biggest bane is corruption in Nigeria and if we can reduce our corruption level by 30 to 40 per cent, I tell you the progress we will make in this country will be tremendous.

“If you realise, the money that goes out of the system through corrupt practices is humongous and so what we really need to do is to fight this corruption,” Ali said.

By Mustapha Sumaila
The Federal Government implemented the border closure policy to send a message to Nigeria’s neighbouring countries.

The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), retired Col. Hameed Ali, made the disclosure in Abuja on Sunday.

He was speaking at a special interview session at the headquarters of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Ali explained that the closure of borders was not meant to be permanent but that it was carried out to send a strong message to neighbouring countries.

He said that in the past, neighbouring countries did not honour or adhere to protocols and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed on border management.

“We just set up a joint border patrol. It is an offshoot of the joint border drill, which was the operation we launched to close our borders.

“The intention was not to close our borders perpetually. It was to send a message to our meighbours that they cannot continue to go against the protocols that are established and acceded to.

“When we abide by certain protocols on movement of goods across our borders, we discovered that those rules are no longer adhered to by our neighbours.

“We made multiple advances. We have reached across, we have signed papers in terms of MoU but none of them worked.

“So we are left with no option than to close our borders and send a message.

“We developed joint border drill to effectively close the borders and manned it and we now had to look at it that we cannot continue to close our borders so what do we do?

“We reopened it and we are now working with our neighbours — our counterparts in Niger Republic and Benin Republic.

“We have to come up with a concept that now gives us the chance to monitor and manage our borders without closing the exits and entrances, so that is how we came up with joint border patrol.”

Ali said that every country involved in the arrangement established its own but that there had been synergy so far among the operators of the joint border patrol.

According to him, officers and men involved in the patrol often share information with one another for effective management of borders.

“If there are movements of illicit persons or goods, they communicate from that end to our end, so also do we do. We share intelligence and information.

“We have also exchanged the list of prohibited items, like those Benin Republic does not want in its country. We make sure we block them here before they cross.

“Also from the other side, there are things we don’t want to see in Nigeria. For instance, poultry products are still prohibited to be imported into the country.

“We are working with coordinators of the joint border patrol. We have created that synergy. The agreement is that on monthly basis, we will continue to get reports on how things are unfolding.

“On daily basis, there will be interaction between them and it is our hope that this will help in reducing the influx of illicit items in or out of Nigeria.

“We have established that and it has started working and we hope that will be the magic in terms of managing our borders.”

The customs boss expressed his optimism that by the time e-customs is unveiled, the NCS will deploy necessary technology to verify goods coming into or going out of Nigeria.

He noted that the technology would also help the NCS to tackle the menace of smuggling.

By Mustapha Sumaila
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is to commence implementation of tariff reduction on vehicles before the end of this month.

The NCS Comptroller-General, retired Col. Hameed Ali, made the announcement at the flagship News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja on Sunday.

He said that the commencement of the policy followed the transmission of the directive to the NCS by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.

NAN recalls that on Jan. 26, the customs’ boss had said that the NCS was awaiting directives from the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning on the implementation of the Act.

President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Finance Bill, 2020 into law on Dec. 31, 2020, stipulating downward review of Excise Duty on tractors and motor vehicles for transportation.

“The Act has been transmitted to us. We received the minister’s mandate this week, to start working on it, although we have to develop certain regulations and measures on how we intend to implement the law.

“We have to change our codes to fit into the new law. You know that commercial vehicles levy is the only levy that has been reduced from 35 per cent to five per cent.

“So we have to change the codes to fit into the new law and we hope we’ll finish that in two days and the minister will have to look at it and agree that yes that is what we should do.

“I hope not too long from now, by next week or next two weeks, this law will come into effect. We will circulate it to our own commands to begin to operate.”

The customs boss noted that the new law would help the country to have vehicles meant for transportation with reduced duty for the benefit of Nigerians.

He noted that the high duty paid had also resulted to increased smuggling of vehicles into the country.

Ali disclosed that statistics available to the service showed that about 300,000 to 400,000 vehicles coming into Nigeria first stop in Benin Republic before being smuggled into Nigeria.

He said that the reduction of duty, especially on the transport sector would make Nigeria to have strong vehicles for conveying goods and services as well as passengers.

By Mustapha Sumaila
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is canvassing for mechanisms to check the inflow of products of non-participating countries into Africa through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.

The Comptroller-General of Customs, retired Col. Hameed Ali, made the call when he featured at a forum of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.

Ali said that implementation of AfCFTA must abide by the rules of origin policy, to forestall the challenges that might arise in its operations.

He, however, disclosed that customs had yet to receive the instruments that would enable it to facilitate the AfCFTA goods movements.

“The success of AfCFTA is dependent on what customs does and the success of customs is dependent on rules of origin.

“Unless we are able to establish a strong and veritable rules of origin, the AfCFTA will encounter problems.

“I will give you an example. Morocco today has bilateral trade agreement with the EU.

“Morocco is highly industrialised by African standards. Our fear is that EU goods can now come to the country based on the bilateral agreements they have.

“And such products can find their way into Nigeria on zero-duty because all you need to do is to tear off the bag and put made in Morocco and then we accept it.

“The good thing about rules of origin is that we can negotiate with countries like asking Morocco for instance, what are the goods you are bringing under the list.

“This is because we have 90 per cent of zero duty list, we have 70 per cent and we have three per cent, we can find out under the list which goods are you bringing.

“If you are bringing ABC and D, the most common thing to do is to verify the original manufacturers of the goods in your own country.

“If you are manufacturing a bottle of drink and bringing it here, we should be able to establish that yes, this company exists in your country.”

According to Ali, customs has what it takes to facilitate the trade to ensure that rules of origin are complied with.

“We have put everything in place for now. For us in customs we are ready to implement the AfCFTA,” said the customs chief.

NAN reports that the AfCFTA, founded in 2018, with 54 participating African countries commenced trade officially on Jan. 1 this year.

The free-trade area is the largest in the world in terms of the number of participating countries since the formation of the World Trade Organisation.

By Nana Musa
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has advised the Federal Government to allow investors to take over the running of the country’s three refineries.

Alhaji Danladi Pasali, National Secretary of IPMAN, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.

He spoke while reacting to a report that the pump price of petrol might likely get to N190 per litre and the price of crude oil hit 60 dollars per barrel in the international market.

Speaking at the official launch of Nigerian Upstream Cost Optimisation Programme in Abuja, Minister State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva said with no provision of subsidy in the 2021 budget, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, cannot continue to bear the cost of under-recovery.

At present, the pump price of petrol ranges from N160 –N165, the price band set when crude traded just above 43 dollars per barrel four months ago.

Pasali, commending government’s efforts, said that IPMAN controlled 80 per cent of the downstream sectors.

“IPMAN controls 80 per cent of the downstream sectors of the industry and with our investments running into trillion, government should give us the three refineries.

“We can run it successful in collaboration with our foreign investors,” he said.

Pasali said that allowing investors to take over would help in making the government’s job easy and improve the economic development.

He said increasing petrol price for now was not a good thing, as the economic index shows that the county was in economic hardship.

“The capacity of people buying the products is low now compared to before, for example some people buy petrol of N1,500 for their cars but it was not like that in the past.”

Pasali also advised the government to call for stakeholders’ meeting to help solve the problem.

“We can look at other means because there are so many things in the oil template, for example to see how we can reduce the tension.

“There are so many charges in the template like the unnecessary marine charges that can be reduced and it can help reduce the tension, among other suggestions.”