The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has said it will create bonded vehicle parks and terminals nationwide and licence major dealers to operate same and facilitate the creation of more jobs for the automobile industry.
The acting Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the service, Joseph Attah said, “Customs is going to grant licences to genuine car dealers to operate bonded car terminals. What this means is that they will not necessarily need to go to Lagos to clear vehicles.
“When a dealer imports his vehicles and he manifests them for the destination in the inland areas, the dealer will only provide some logistics and the Customs will escort them down to the terminal without paying the customs duty yet.
“Of course, there will be Customs outpost around the terminal and the vehicles will stay in the terminal between 28 and 30 days without paying the duties yet.
“If such dealer is lucky and buyers come for the vehicles, they could sell and then go to the Customs desk, pay the duty, get the genuine Customs papers and drive off without being stopped for issues.”
The Customs’ spokesman said the measure will help the end users to buy genuine cars without going outside the borders while the car dealer will enjoy the convenience of clearing his car at a nearby facility.
He said the bonded terminal operation will also boost the collaboration of Customs, the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in unifying vehicle duty payment and registration of imported vehicles which is slated to begin by March 2017.
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