Competing interests by parties in the $3.1billion e-customs project, which aims at modernising the operations of the Nigeria Customs Service , has stalled the formal signing of the deal six years after it was conceptualised in 2016.
The project, which had enjoyed the buy-in of late Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Malam Abba Kyari, started suffering setbacks after his demise in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sources said Ali was more favourably inclined towards Bionica, but had not been able to pull the project through.
“In other climes, the best practice is moving towards unifying revenue collection. If we want to go that far, and achieve that best practice, our submission would be to move revenue to the Federal Inland Revenue Service so that Customs Service can really focus on trade facilitation function.”Further checks revealed that the 20 years timeline of the deal would read from the sign-on date, which is not looking feasible at a time the Buhari government is left with just 16 months to go.
Amiwero said the NCS presently operated an e-customs model powered by Webb Fontaine and the approval for another one was not necessary. He said all that was needed was an upgrade of the existing platform being used by the NCS to meet the demands and expectations of trade. “It is simply electronically transferred transactions. Is that not what Webb Fontaine is doing? Central Bank is doing e-banking and Customs is doing e-customs. There was a time Customs processes were manual and you had to carry things from shipping companies to terminal, etc., but now all those things are gone. So what you have on ground is already e-Customs, and no need to duplicate it. We should improve on it.
“ single most important function of Customs Service anywhere in d world is trade facilitation' said Zainab of Finance. But Ali of Customs interest is collection of revenue. Revenue from Customs duty since 2015 has not been paid into Fed.Accts so battle is of who controls purse
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