The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Wednesday deployed heavily armed Customs officials to the PTML offdock terminal located at Mile 2, Lagos to forestall breakdown of law and order as some aggrieved freight forwarders vow to proceed with a protest against the service.
The freight forwarders had given a 72-hour ultimatum to the NCS to suspend its proposed e-valuation mandated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which they believe will lead to an increase in the duty payable on imported vehicles.
The CBN had in a recent circular to all authorised dealers and the general public announced that it would begin e-invoice for imports and exports in the country from Feb. 1, 2022.
The PTML Chapter Chairman of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), George Okafor, while speaking with SHIPS & PORTS, said, “Since last week that the e-valuation took off, you can’t get value on the spot; it is e-valuation. Vehicle importation is going down, as at yesterday at Grimaldi, it is only 180 Semi Knock Downs both containerised and vehicle and today we don’t know how many that would be declared because of this e-valuation.”
The PTML Chapter Chairman of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Samuel Obey, also confirmed that the duties on imported vehicles had been increased on the e-valuation platform.
He said, “We gave them 72 hours to reverse what they are putting in their system and the system is not working for now; that is our problem. The challenges are that if you put you vehicles identification number in the machine, it will not come out and any one that comes out will bring a very high valuation.
“For example, what used to be N500,000 duty is now almost N2million when you go into the system. What they input in the system is higher than what we have been paying before. So, we are expecting them to know what to do.”
Obey expressed fear that importation might drop further if the situation was not properly addressed.