Customs Duty: Don't Enforce Deadline on Vehicle Import Duties - Senate

Senators have kicked against the one month ultimatum given by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to Nigerian vehicle owners and dealers to regularise the import duties paid on their vehicles or forfeit them to the Federal Government.
The NCS said that at the expiration of the deadline, the owners/dealers in such vehicles will be made to pay the appropriate duties and forfeit the vehicles upon default in paying the evaluated duties.
The NCS said that the move was part of its renewed efforts to check smuggling of vehicles.

Since the NCS gave the order last week, it has generated a lot of controversies, with many Nigerians describing the policy as ill-conceived.

Reacting to the NCS’s directive on Tuesday, the Senate asked the agency to suspend the implementation of the circular asking dealers and users of imported vehicles who did not pay duties on them to do so within one month.
The Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hammed Ali (rtd), had approved a grace pe­riod of one month from Mon­day, March 13 to Wednesday April 12, 2017 for owners of such vehicles to pay the duties.
But the Upper House, after a deliberation on the circular, directed the NCS to stop all ac­tions regarding the implemen­tation of the policy and appear before the Senate Committee on Customs to explain in details the purpose of the circular to Nigerians.
It also directed the commit­tee to immediately engage the NCS with a view to fashioning out what can clearly be accept­able to Nigerians under a dem­ocratic dispensation.
The directives of the Sen­ate were prompted by a mo­tion sponsored by the Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah, tagged: “Customs di­rects all motor dealers and pri­vate owners of such vehicles to visit the nearest Customs Zon­al Office to pay the appropriate customs duties on them.”
In his submission, Na’Allah noted that the implementation of the circular was not only un­clear, but could cause discom­fort for Nigerians, stressing that it was already causing anxiety among the citizens.
According to him, the Par­liament has a compelling need to protect the Nigerian public against this arbitrariness.
He said: “I asked if I bought a car eight years ago and was duly registered and I live in Sokoto and then you require me to come to Kaduna to know whether my Customs duty is authentic or not, what you are requiring from me is even out­side the provision of the law.
“It is the responsibility of the NCS to authenticate this document and if they now shift it to the citizens to determine whether what they have is au­thentic or not; I think it’s suffi­ciently ridiculous to call the at­tention of this Senate to ‘say no’ to this kind of arbitrariness”.
In his contribution, the Deputy Senate President, Sen­ator Ike Ekweremadu, faulted the rationale in the enforce­ment of the circular by the Cus­toms through the imposition of stiff penalties on perceived vi­olators of the duty – over al­leged infractions committed years ago.
“Not even the National As­sembly itself can impose pun­ishment on a crime that was committed years ago. It can­not happen, if we cannot do that the Customs cannot do that either. What they are do­ing is totally unacceptable and we must say no to it,” he added.
The Chairman of the Sen­ate Committee on FCT, Sena­tor Dino Melaye (Kogi West) called on the appropriate com­mittee of the Senate to call the Customs to order and protect ordinary Nigerians.