By Stephen Ubanna
Compt. Babatunde Olomu’s polcy of ‘’operation no compromise with Fraudulent Agents whose stock in trade over the years have been to defraud the government via under declaration and underpayment appears to have forced many of them to turn a new leaf.
Olayemi Michael Cardoso, governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, may have provided the ammunition for the Customs Comptroller to turn to a revenue mobilizer for the Federal Government of Nigeria, With barely one year in office, the CBN, governor and his Management team, may have discovered that the various Customs Formations overseeing the nation’s seaports and land border areas are not collecting commensurate duties and taxes compared to the volume of cargoes imported into the country on monthly basis.
This may have informed why the apex Bank under the Leadership of Cardoso had tried to change the policy met on ground to introduce a price portal on June 27, 2024, with the intention to control what is happening at the nation’s entry points. The CBN , Authorities may have had intention of introducing the price verification portal for foreign exchange transactions to ensure that prices quoted for imported goods from the Asian countries of China, India, Japan, South Korea , North American country of the United States, US, Europe and other parts of the world are properly verified .
The Regulatory Bank Authorities was emphatic that the newly introduced price verification portal was aimed at ‘’preventing over-invoicing and under-invoicing, and ensuring fair pricing in Nigeria’s import and export activities.
The apex Bank Leadership may have found out that after three days of tinkering with the policy that it cannot change anything at the ports and Land border areas as cases of under-invoicing and over-invoincing are still much prevalent and even worse.
This may have informed why the Bank has to discontinue with the implementation of the policy and allow the Customs Trade and Tariff to do what they best: determine the price of imports based on the provisions of the Customs and Excise Management Act, CEMA, 2023, that was passed by the ninth National Assembly and signed into Law by former Muhammadu Buhari with effect from July 1, 2024.
The Bank which may have shot itself on the leg had said that with the new directive the Nigerian Service, NCS, Formations , across the country , are free to process all applications for Form, without the need for a Price Verification Report generated from the PVS Portal.
The CBN , governor had alluded to the fact that the policy change would streamline the processes by which authorised dealer bank on foreign exchange and the general public and further ease the procedural burden associated with foreign exchange transactions.
The CBN, Authorities was said to have made it clear to the NCS, that Price Verification Report, is no longer a Requirement for Completing Form M, by importers, may have informed why Demand Notice, DN, are flying all the Lagos ports of Apapa, Tincan Island, Port Multi-services Terminal Limited, PTML, Onne port, and the Land border Areas of Idiroko , Seme and Oyo/ Osun .
The Apapa Command, Area Controller may have set the pace as he was said to have recovered millions of naira which could have entered into private pockets from under payments between July and now.
Barely a week ago, the Command was aid to have issued a DN, of N71 million to an undisclosed an importer while DN, of N4 milion to N5 million appears common., meaning that the N201 billion , which the Command had collected and paid into the Federation would be a child’s play compared to what it would generate. in the remaining months of this 2024.
Many believe that prior to the CBN, price Verification portal to guide Customs Headquarters Trade and Tariff, Department and the Valuations units of the Commands, Importers with their clearing agents who were not finding it funny particular, with the . Apapa port.
Working as a team, Compt. Olomu, and his Management team, comprising of the DCs, overseeing the Command’s Revenue unit, Valuation, Enforcement, APM terminal, Exit Gate the port and other DCs superintending the terminals outside the port, appears to have made things uncomfortable for the fraudulent importers.
An insider told The Value News that the Customs Comptroller, who incidentally had served as the Officer –in-charge of the Command’s Enforcement unit, in the past with a Close Circuit Television, CTV, may have given him an insight to what is happening at the premier port and how to go about it in tackling the smugglers and fake pharmaceutical products importers from China and India.
For those who thinks that it is only the Federal Operations Unit, FOU, Zone A, that cold intercept and seize prohibited poultry products, at the land border areas of the south western states of Ogun, Lagos, Oyo, Osun, and Ekiti, and not any of the country’ seaports may gotten wrong.
Compt Olomu, described as a workaholic by officers of the Command and clearing agents taking delivery of their cargoes at the port and other official documents going to the Comptroller’s office appears to have proved bookmakers wrong that it is not only at the land border areas that smuggled foreign products could be intercepted, seized and destroyed.
Last July, the Apapa Command, under the Leadership of the athletic-built Compt . olomu, according to an insider was said to have intercepted and seized six X‘’40’’ Containers load of fake and expired pharmaceutical products and 1 X ‘’40’’, Container loaded with 4,29, of foreign poultry products . Like what obtains at the FOU, Zone A, Ikeja, Seme, Idiroko and other Land border areas, across the country, the foreign poultry products were said to have been destroyed.
That much was confirmed by Abdullahi Usman, a Chief Superintendent of Customs and he Command’s spokesperson. The question on the lips of most people was that if Compt. Olomu’s team, in less than three months could seize, some Containers load of poultry products, it gives a clear insight to the rot that been happening at the premier port over the years.
The Apapa port not have been the only port that importers had attempted to use to bring into the Nigerian market fake and expired Pharmaceutical products and prohibited foreign poultry products but other seaports across the country and still have their way. The fake Pharmaceutical product importers and foreign poultry importers may have read the handwriting on the wall that with Compt. Olomu, still in-charge of Apapa port and fully committed to the implementation of his operation no compromise policy, ‘’it is no longer going to be business as usual for them.
Recall that about four years ago, Abba-Kura, a retired, Deputy Comptroller General of Customs, who incentally was a forme Area Command of the Apapa Command, through intelligence had intercepted 72 Containers load of fake and substandard pharmaceutical products imported into the country without the registration number of the National Agency for Drug and Food and Drug Administration and Contro, NAFDAC, which is currently has mOIAdeyeye, a Professor as the Director General.
