Nigerian Customs Service Illegal Valuation Practice Petitioned Against at Senate

The widespread practice of the arbitrary valuation of imported goods by the Nigerian Customs Service may soon come to a crashing halt. Very much similar to the practice exposed in the electricity sector, where officials of power distribution companies arbitrarily charge customers on estimated electricity utilization instead of actual consumption, the Nigerian Customs Service oftentimes estimate what they think an import is worth instead of going by the supporting documentation supplied by the shipping company, clearing agent or importer.

Lucky Amiwero, the Managing Director of Eyis Resources Limited, a clearing company petitioned the Senate President on the practice of “forceful imposition of fictitious and arbitrary value on trading”.

The petitioner has petitioned the Senate to compel the Nigerian Customs Service to “comply with the provision of Custom and Excise Management (Amendment) Act 20 of 2003, which clearly sets out the criteria for the treatment of valuation of goods, so as to ease the tension at the ports.”

Senate President David Mark has transferred the petition to the Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance for necessary action.

Amiwero is fighting against the illegal behavior of Customs in imposing “fictitious and arbitrary value on the trading public of static data base on 26 commodities” in clear disregard for Customs and Excise (Amendment) Act 20 of 2003.

According to the petitioner, “By implication, based on the static database on commodity item, goods are valued on the basis of containers and not on the product, which is strange in the history of valuation globally and not backed by any instrument or statute.

“That means, any 40 foot container, whether it is 10 cartons, will attract the same value as the container with 5,000 cartons.”