The President, Shippers’ Association Lagos State (SALS), Rev. Jonathan Nicol, on Friday said congestion at the nation’s ports could be averted if the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) was accelerated.
Nicol told the Newsmen in Lagos that the shippers were always ready to cooperate with the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) towards enhancing the PAAR regime. He said that customs agents were losing confidence in the PAAR regime due to delays in clearance of cargo and accumulation of demurrage.
“I expect all the other service providers to come and learn from the Nigeria Customs`But, where the Customs personnel would begin to query their own documents, it becomes a problem for everybody.
“I was in that forum when the CGC (Comptroller-General of Customs) said once they issued a PAAR, God help the Customs officer who would query it.
`Now, they are querying it and nobody is talking.
“We believe that we can find a better way of harmonising things instead of allowing one group of people to suffer. The shippers are suffering.
“We understand also that the provisional period of release of cargo without PAAR has been increased.
“And we have so many cargoes on ground that have not been issued the PAAR. How do we clear them?
“That is why we believe there should be a systematic approach to resolving all this PAAR issue.
“If you are saying, ‘go and get self-assessment’, and we give ourselves assessment, why don’t you work with that assessment?” Nicol asked.
We recalls that Mr Kunio Mikuriya, the Secretary General of the World Customs Organisation (WCO), had urged Nigerian Customs Service to enhance cargo clearance at the ports.
The Public Relations Officers (PRO) of the NCS, Mr Wale Adeniyi, also said that the customs had established Help Desk to assist customs agents and shippers to facilitate clearance of cargoes.
`Even if you don’t have any specific importation they (Call Desk) will give you satisfactory responses regarding what is happening to DI (Destination Inspection).
“I called them one day. I pretended that I was an importer and I told them that I learnt that the server was down and asked what was happening?’“Of course, the lady there told me that the server currently has not been taken over by Customs; it is still under the management of the service provider, Webb Fontaine“That the Customs is working with them to ensure that the server is up and working and it escapes the frequent breakdown that we are experiencing.“We didn’t set out to say PAAR is for trade facilitation but, it is already inherent in a number of the features,“he said
According to reports that the PAAR allows importers or their agents to begin the process of clearing the cargoes once they have been loaded from the originating countries and before their arrival in Nigeria.
