Hyacinth Chinweuba
The Comptroller General of Customs, Hameed Ali has said that restriction order on importation of rice through land borders is still in force.
He has also ordered investigation into allegations of officers’ collusion with rice importers, vowing that indicted personnel would be severely punished.
The CGC also decreed a zero-tolerance to rice imports through the land borders, irrespective of volume with immediate effect, stating that importers who have already initiated import processes would only enjoy a grace period ending Friday 25th March 2016 to clear their consignments.
Ali rescinded his earlier directive of October 2015 which had allowed rice imports through the land borders, once appropriate duty and charges were paid during policy review session held with Comptrollers of Border Commands and Federal Operation Units held in Abuja.
Confirming the policy reversal, the Nigeria Customs Service spokesman, Deputy Comptroller, Wale Adeniyi called attention to a dwindling revenue trend from rice imports through the Land borders, noting that revenue from rice through the land borders do not match the volume of rice being landed in neighboring Ports.
“Rather, reports from Border commands indicated an upsurge in the tempo of rice smuggling”, he explained.
He highlighted that though the implementation of the restriction order got off to a smooth start, with a high level of compliance in October 2015; sadly however, “revenue started dwindling from January 2016, with importers blaming access to Forex as major impediments.
“During the Five-month period when the importation was allowed, running from October 2015-March 17th 2016, a total of 24.992 Metric Tonnes of Rice valued at N 2, 335,131,093 was imported through the land borders.
“During the period, total revenue generated amounted to N1,685,112,810 only. This is considerably lower than the revenue projected to be generated with the removal of import restrictions.
“However, an upsurge in the number of the seizures has been reported across the land borders since January 2016.
“In the first two months of the 2016, a total of 9238 bags were seized, with Duty Paid Value of N64,666,000 was made by the Customs anti-smuggling patrol teams of Federal operations and Border commands”, Mr. Adeniyi said.