Customs vows to end smuggling, false declarations
The new Customs controller, Federal Operations Unit (FUA), Ikeja, Mr. Mohammed Uba Garba, has declared the agency’s resolve to clamp down on all import and export offenders.
Addressing newsmen on Wednesday during a press briefing, Comptroller Garba disclosed that since his appointment on May 18, 2017, the agency has seized contraband goods and wrongly classified items with false declarations totaling N607.7million.
The goods were said to have been brought into the country through airports, seaports and land borders with the intention of beating the system and avoiding the 20 percent import duty fees. Others were substandard or banned products which were either not for the country’s consumption or imported through the wrong routes.
Some of such goods include 600 bags of parboiled rice which were stacked behind plastic takeaway packs and brought into the country via a truck.
He pointed out that importation of rice is not prohibited but is restricted to the seaports and not via land borders. The confiscated rice was valued at N4.3million.
Garba further stated that aside from the duty payments totaling N334million and the recovered N273.7million, which make up the total N607.7million, vehicles which were used as smuggling tools were also seized while 35 people with links to these seized items were detained.
The pressmen were taken to the customs warehouse where truckloads of recently seized goods were exhibited. One of such trucks contained 2,322 pieces of used tyres and two vehicles valued at N10.3million.
Another truck, also confiscated, contained 170 cartons of prison ring compressors valued at N2.5million. A third truck housed 12 pallets of general calcium vehicle batteries of 108 per pallet totalling 1,296 pieces, and the last truck had logs of unprocessed rough wood which were to be exported against the law.
One major highlight was the interception of 384 parcels of Indian hemp concealed inside six bales of second hand clothing from Ghana along Iyana-Ipaja road.
