From Anthony Nwachukwu
The Ag. Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, has disbanded the Controller-General of Customs (CGC) Strike Force teams and begun strengthening the Federal Operations Units (FOUs) across the country to make them more effective.
The move, according to a circular from the CGC’s office, is to eliminate role duplication and trade barriers at the seaports and land borders, as well as to step up the anti-smuggling war.
This is even as he expressed optimism that the new hefty monetary penalties in the new Customs Act would significantly curb deliberate trade infractions.
In a circular restoring the sanctity of trade enforcement operations outside the regular port commands/stations to the FOUs, the Deputy Controller-General of Customs, Enforcement, Investigation and Intelligence, Mohammed Abba-Kura, asked the strike force officers to hand over to the FOUs across the zones.
“I am directed to convey the Comptroller-General of Customs’ (CGC) approval for the immediate dissolution of the CGC’s Strike Force teams,” Abba-Kura said in the circular.
“To this end, all officers under the teams are by this circular directed to return to their area commands or units where they were drawn from.
“SF Team coordinators in respective zones (A, B, C & HQ) are to ensure the following: All arms and ammunitions are to be properly handed over to the respective area commands/units/ headquarters where they were signed from;
“All operational vehicles are to be handed over to Controllers, Federal Operations Units (FOUs) and returns forwarded to headquarters respectively. Coord HQ SF Team should retire operational vehicles under his team to Comptroller Transport & Logistics;
“Records of detentions, seizures, cases in court and any other vital record/information are to be handed to Controller FOUs across the zones while Coord HQ SF Team should retire all records under his custody to the office of DCG E, 1&1.”
He conveyed the CGC’s commendation and appreciation for the services rendered by the SF Teams, while urging them to “ensure strict compliance with immediate effect.”
Meanwhile, the Ag. CGC, who hinted on the development while fielding questions from newsmen in Lagos Monday, explained that the agency’s current enforcement strategy “gave us very limited result.
“I believe that we have not reaped the maximum potentials that we can get from enforcement. So, we will integrate the use of technology into this. We will make better use of intelligence.
“Of course, the operation of our checkpoints has not given us the kind of results that we desire, rather it has created some kind of reputation damage for us.
Therefore, “we are already reviewing the way we have our checkpoints, the architecture of our security patrol. We are going to replace it with a new structure and part of that is that we are going to strengthen the Federal Operations Units across the country.”
In addition, “the agency will deploy simple technological tools at the various unmanned border areas, with a control centre somewhere, to monitor and control smuggling.”
Similarly, Adeniyi was optimistic that improved fines, which he described as “one of the major features of the new Customs Act in terms of the administration of justice and giving sanctions,” would improve deterrence in trade infractions and improve revenue and security, among others.
According to him, the sanctions “in the previous law were more or less a slap on the wrist; they were not punitive enough and did not serve any kind of deterrence, but in the new law, they are.”
He explained that the penalties in view are “fines ranging from N10 million for simple infractions. Those we had under sections 46 and 47 (illegal importation) imposed fines of N500/N1000 before, this time the lowest is N5 million.
“We believe that these are heavy, and they will be subjected to periodic reviews if we feel that their imposition is not as deterrent as planned, so they might be amended further.”