Clearing Agents Blame Influx Of Arms On Cargo Inspection Scheme
The National President, National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Lucky Amiwero has blamed the influx of arms, ammunition, weapon of mass destruction and unwholesome products into the country on the Destination Inspection (DI) Scheme adopted by the Federal Government.
Amiwero who stated this in a letter he addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari and a copy made available to newsmen said the DI scheme which allowed goods to be inspected only on arrival into the country without the outbound inspection of cargo from the point of origin would continue to put the country in danger.
Amiwero also blamed the non-functionality of scanners at the ports as contributory factor said the scheme contravened various provisions of Customs-to- Customs Standards on World Customs Organization (WCO) SAFE Framework of Standard to secure and facilitate global trade.
According to him, “Destination Inspection (DI) process of import on cargo allows the illicit cross-border movement of weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), Drugs, Arms, Ammunitions, counterfeit merchandise, hazardous waste and human trafficking as presently practiced in Nigeria, which allows goods into Nigeria without pre-screening to identify high risk goods before shipment.
“The process of non-inspection/ pre-screening of goods coming into Nigeria poses greater security risk by the influx of Arms, Ammunition, Contrabands, Narcotics, explosives (e.g dirty bombs, and weapon of mass destruction (WMD) and unwholesome items in to the country in contravention of standard 2, 3 and 11 of the WCO SAFE framework of Standard.
“The protocol of WCO Framework of standard 2, 3 and 11 in which Nigeria is a contracting party recommends scanners as the core for inspection of goods to detects high-risk cargo on security and the facilitation tools as non-intrusive(Scanning) Inspection in other to reduce the laborious process of cargo inspection as contained in the WCO Standard 2 , 3 and 11.
“(I) Standard 2: Cargo inspection authority, The Customs administration should have the authority to inspect cargo originating, exiting, transiting (including remaining on board) or being transshipped through a country
“(ii) Standard 3: Modern Technology in inspection equipment; Non-intrusive inspection equipment and radiation detection equipment should be available and used for conducting inspections.
“This equipment is necessary to inspect high-risk cargo and/ or transport conveyance quickly, without disrupting the flow of legitimate trade.
“(iii) Standard 11: Outbound Security Inspection; The Customs administration should conduct security inspection of high-risk cargo and/or transport conveyance.
“(ii) Under build Operate Owned and Transfer(BOOT) in the Ports can only scan for revenue that is against the core process of scanning as required by the global security measures, which is to identify arms, ammunition, dirty Bomb, narcotics, biological, nuclear, radiological materials, contraband, human trafficking, drugs etc.”
Amiwero who recalled that the scanners in Nigerian Ports were transferred to Nigeria Customs Service in 2014/15 regretted that all of them had collapsed with the huge negative effects which according to him included; serious security threat as a result of physical/ manual inspection on Containers.
He said physical examination limits the function of the Customs officers to perform the selectivity on mid-level risk consignment allocated to the scanners for detection of security product and unwholesome goods and laborious Inspection without scanners that was the essential tool approved under the (DI) scheme in 2006 to facilitate and secure trade, which encouraged delays and the payment of rent and demurrage by importer/ licensed Customs Agents.
Other negative effect of non functional scanners according to Amiwero include costly inspection to importer/ licensed customs agents on physical inspection without scanners.
