Customs, others partner to stop vehicle smuggling

Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) yesterday partnered on a project to ensure that all vehicles imported into Nigeria paid duties before registration. The move is to increase government revenue.

Customs Public Relations Officer, Mr Wale Adeniyi, said on Wednesday in Abuja that the objective of the collaboration was to shore up the revenue base of the country and stop vehicle smuggling.

He said that the meeting of the heads of the agencies was to fashion out the modalities to achieve the implementation of the project.

Adeniyi said the effective implementation of the project was that the heads of the agencies had resolved to set up two technical committees.

He added that one of the committees would work on the ICT interface of the agencies

He said that the other committee would draft the Standard Operative Procedure for deployment of officers to the state tax offices where registration of vehicles would take place.

Adeniyi said that a lot of training and sensitisation would be involved in the collaboration process.

According to him, in the short run, customs officers will go to FRSC that will train and equip them with the skills that will be necessary to actualise the collaboration.

He said that in the long run, both agencies agreed that a training module would be introduced in their different training schools that would allow customs officers to be trained by FRSC officials’ vice- versa.

Adeniyi said that the modules of the training would be incorporated into the curriculum of the academy of both institutions.

He said, “Some progress has been made before now but we expect that these committees will come up with recommendations that will allow the agencies to build on the existing progress so that we can get to the level of full integration between customs and FRSC.

“It is our intention to spell out specifically what customs officers will be doing, what their job descriptions will be and what will be the limit of their power so that there will be no excesses.

According to him, the collaboration is in response to the directive Mr President gave that government agencies should think out of the box to enhance the revenue base of the country.

He said, “This project involves high level collaboration among the three agencies to ensure that no vehicle will be registered unless verification of duty payment is made.

“There will be one shop verification facilities, officers who will be deployed to state licence offices.

These officers will be able to check the system and confirm payment before such applicants are directed to the licensing authority for vehicle registration.

He said, “It is also part of this collaboration that every importer will be made to produce the Tax Identification Numbers before they can conduct any business with customs.

“FIRS will equip us with the knowledge to be able to access their system and be able to determine whether these are responsible individuals and corporate citizens before they can conduct business with customs.

“The collaboration is going to mutually benefit the relationship among all the agencies.”