The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) may soon relinquish its powers to auction overtime and seized cargoes.
Comptroller-General of Customs Dikko Inde Abdulahi dropped this hint at a recent industry forum in Lagos.
The Customs chief, who said that the Service does not desire to sell-off people’s consignments at give-away prices, however, lamented that some consignees deliberately abandon their cargoes at the ports in other to buy them at auction.
Abdullahi disclosed that once President Goodluck Jonathan assents to the passage of the new Customs and Excise Management (CEMA) Bill, the Service will hand over the sale of overtime cargoes to private auctioneers.
“Customs is not interested in selling anybody’s good and the moment the president assent to that CEMA, auction is no longer of customs, it is not our job, it is unprofessional,” the Customs said.
He pointed out some fraudsters in connivance with some unscrupulous officers have allegedly consistently scanned his signature to sign auction papers.
“Some people scan my signatures and they have been releasing container and I don’t sign auction papers but we find out that it is even with the connivance of officers. In fact, I have remove auction from Customs from the new CEMA, let it go to auctioneers I am not interested,” he said.
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