Nigeria Customs Service’s Post Clearance Audit (PCA) unit was designed to facilitate trade and eliminate unnecessary delay in the release of cargo, the National Coordinator, Save Nigeria Freight Forwarders, Importers and Exporters Coalition (SNFFIEC), Chief (Dr ) Osita Chukwu has elucidated.
Addressing a cross section of maritime press on Friday, the National Coordinator described the call by the National President of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Chief Emenike Nwokeoji, for the scrapping of PCA as baseless and absolutely wrong.
Chief Chukwu condemned the call in its entirety, saying that the PCA has been making tremendous impact in revenue generation of Customs.
He averred that for Customs to effectively discharge its work effectively without encumbrances of delay PCA must be in place to later reconcile discrepancies that might be noticed in the course of clearing.
The maritime activist noted that the essence of PCA is to allow goods which duty is in contention to go while PCA takes over to reconcile and give the correct duty without the goods acquiring demurrages.
The Save Nigeria boss stressed that PCA is meant to detect wrong duty payment and connivance in the payment of lesser duties.
He declared that without PCA, Customs will be losing billions of naira which will be unaccounted for.
Chukwu restated that the existence of PCA keeps fraud inclining importers and clearing agents in check when they remember that PCA could invite them long after they had cleared their cargo.
He however, frowned at PCA inviting clearing agents whose goods have issues to Abuja, saying that it’s a waste of time and resources.
According to him, PCA should invite agents whose jobs have issues to the place of operation where the agents and cargoes are domiciled for cost effective reconciliation and not Abuja, the headquarters of the Service.
Chukwu reiterated that scrapping PCA unit will make auditing impossible and give unfettered access to corrupt shippers and their clearing agents to have their way.
The activist advocated that clearing agents should charge their principals well and do the job well without cutting corners so that PCA will not have cause to invite them later.
