The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has said that it is entitled to collect the one per cent Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme (CISS) since it is now in charge of the destination inspection scheme in Nigeria.
The federal government had approved, as part of its seven-year Build Own Operate and Transfer contract with the previous destination inspection service providers, the collection of one per cent CISS charge on all imports to the country by the service providers.
Whether the collection of the one percent CISS should continue, since the expiration of the contract and handover to the NCS by the former destination inspection service providers, has turned out to be an issue haggled among port stakeholders.
Some stakeholders posit that since the Nigeria Customs Service, as a government agency, already has a percentage allocated to it from the total revenue it collects annually, it should not be entitled to the one per cent CISS hence the need for the cancellation of the charge.
But Customs spokesman, Wale Adeniyi, a Deputy Comptroller of Customs, said that the one per cent CISS should be paid to the NCS since it now provides the destination inspection service which the former service providers carried out.
“You need to know what it takes to maintain a scanner in a week or in a month, to get all of them serviceable, to get all you need to operate and maintain scanners, to issue PAAR. We operate a ruling centre, we keep officers there 24/7 and these are things we are paying them fantastically for. So, we are saying that Customs should be paid the same way those people were being paid,” Adeniyi stated.
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