The house of representatives has passed a bill seeking to
stop non-serving officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) from being
appointed as comptroller-general of the agency.
The report on the bill was adopted on Tuesday after Leke
Abejide, chairman of the committee on customs and excise, moved a motion for
the consideration of its 283 clauses at the “committee of the whole” presided
over by Idris Wase, deputy speaker of the house.
The proposed legislation seeks to repeal the Customs and
Excise Management Act, 2004 and reenact the Nigeria Customs Service
(Establishment) Bill, 2021.
Hameed Ali, a retired military officer, is the current
comptroller-general of the NCS.
Since his appointment in 2015, Ali has been carrying on his
duties in civilian attire, and in March 2017, when he appeared before the
senate committee on customs and excise duties, he was asked to explain why he
refuses to wear the customs uniform.
In his response, Ali said he does not wear customs uniform
because as a retired army officer it was against military tradition for him to
wear the uniform of another organisation.
Briefing journalists after plenary, Abejide said the
proposed legislation is aimed at transforming the operations of the NCS to make
it more efficient and value-driven.
He said the bill proposes “legislative input into the
appointment of comptroller-general of customs similar to other organisations
like inspector-general of police, Nigeria Immigration Service, and the service
chiefs”.
The lawmaker said the existing act does not provide that
only customs officers be appointed to head the service.
This means that if the bill is passed into law, only serving
officers of the NCS will be appointed to head the agency.
“The passage of this bill is a step in the right direction,
especially in view of the fact that the bill is the first major reform in the
Nigeria Customs Service legal framework in 63 years,” he said.
“The old Act has become obsolete in today’s competitive
global world. A review of the Act seeks to reposition the NCS for improved
efficiency and service delivery. Full automation of the NCS with modern reality
will facilitate trade, improve revenue generation and more importantly expose
illegal importation of arms and ammunition into the country. All of these would
be made possible when this bill becomes an act.
“This bill, when it becomes an act, will position the
Nigeria Customs Service to be financially stable and this will enable NCS to
recruit the required number of officers they need to man our porous border
stations.
“The current seven percent cost of collection from the
duties payment is not enough to pay salaries of officers, not to talk of
improving the infrastructures. For this reason, this bill provides for a
funding system based on four percent FOB according to international best
practices to address funding problems and to reposition the service for
improved efficiency and service delivery.”
The bill, according to the legislator, proposes “stiffer
punishments” for serious customs offences and will encourage more revenue in
the area of payment of fines.
The bill also makes provision for “the arbitration panel for
the purpose of dispute resolution to reduce multiplicity of cases at the court
of law relating to customs issues; introduction of new excise collectable
revenue avenues in line with the recently enacted Finance Act 2021; and
provides legal backing for the collection of excise duties on all carbonated
drinks”.
Abejide said the bill will facilitate “greater revenue
generation in tandem with the goal and target given to customs”.
“The most innovative
inclusion in this bill is the objective of eradicating problems of corruption,
fraud and malpractices together with inefficiencies and ineffectiveness in the
operation of the service, which has hindered the desire to contribute maximally
to the economic development of the nation,” Abejide he said.
“This bill is in tune with ICT development which is going to
give the service the ICT demand it requires for its operations in line with
international best practice. This would ensure a model that can think a
thousand times faster and more efficiently than humans do.”
In line with parliamentary procedure, the bill will have to
be read the third time, after which it would be sent to the senate for
concurrence.
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