By Dipo Olowookere
An alarm has been raised by Nigeria’s upper house of parliament over the disappeared of about 282 ships from the country’s ports.
In view of this, officials of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) have been directed to appear before the Senate on Thursday to say what they know about this development.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariffs, Mr Hope Uzodinma, at a one-day hearing on smuggling in the country yesterday, emphasised that the ports officials have to explain how the ships vanished between 2010 and 2016.
“We want the Nigerian Ports Authority to come and explain what happened to 282 vessels that disappeared from terminals.
“We have names of the releasing officers. This shows that there is no security at the terminal,” Mr Uzodinma said at the hearing declared open on Monday in Abuja by the Senate President, Mr Bukola Saraki.
“More shocking is an aspect of the World Bank report that states that over 25 percent of the total annual revenue collected by custom service is lost to smugglers each year.
“If you go by the projected revenue of the service for this year, which is approximately N600 billion, it means that the service will lose about N200 billion in revenue this year alone.
“The report was unequivocal in stating that an astonishing $5 billion or N1.45 trillion worth of different goods are smuggled into Nigeria annually through Benin Republic alone. This is only 15 percent of the total volume of smuggled goods through the Seme border,” he said at the gathering.
“Permit me in this respect to drop the hint that primary information at our disposal will suggest that in spite of the CISS, leakages still abound in the import-export chain.
“A major area of concern here has to do with mis-invoicing by international traders, abuse of free trade zone policies and temporary import permit.
“Mis-invoicing is a form of trade-based money laundering that includes the over- and understatement of import and export values on official forms and records. A few examples will suffice for illustration.
“Specifically, such practice will include taking advantage of unutilised Form M to perpetrate fraud in collaboration with operating banks.
“We have evidence to suggest that unutilised Form M is used by operators for capital flight and money laundering, all of which facilitate smuggling.
“There are also questions to be answered on the criteria used in the determination, abandonment, cancellation of PAARS and SGDS unutilised PAARS,” the Senator further said.
