After decades of manual auction of goods at ports and border stations amid malpractices, the Nigeria Customs Service is experimenting an e-auction method as part of a reform process. Francis Ugwoke writes
Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Rtd. Col. Hameed Ali, is pursuing an all-embracing reform in the service. It is not just about correcting the ills at the ports involving officers, it is also about ensuring that there is transparency in whatever the service does. Part of this is the recent decision by the Customs to change the old method through which overtime or seized goods are sold to the public. The service said recently that it had decided to introduce an electronic platform to conduct its auctions. The idea, according to the public relations officer of the service, Deputy Comptroller Joseph Attah, is to ensure that there is transparency in the exercise. The electronic platform, Attah said, is already undergoing user acceptability test. He explained, “What that means is that in the very near future, in a matter of weeks, the NCS will officially deploy its trade portal. So the auction exercises will be electronically driven. So when we say e-auction platform, (we mean) a platform in our trade portal that gives opportunity to all interested people to see what they want with a full description of its present state.”
Transparency Problem
In the past decades, auction of goods by the Customs was in about two forms. Once the goods in questions have been certified as overtime cargoes or seized, such goods are gazetted. Goods which are auctioned are those ones seized from their owners for contravening trade laws. These goods could be those seized from smugglers or seized at the ports, may be through concealment and their owners could not come forward to claim them. Such goods could also be those whose owners could not clear within the time allowed for this, either as a result of lack of funds or other reasons. An importer stands the risk of losing his goods once he fails to clear them after three months or 90 days on landing at the ports. Such goods are put together and declared as overtime cargo. The goods are also in turn gazetted before they can be sold.
What the Customs has always done is to first allow the owner of such goods the first right of choice to buy such goods before any other person. In some cases, the Customs can use registered auctioneers to sell the goods. The Customs can also allocate the auction papers directly or even through the auctioneers. It is this way that the process suffers transparency problems. In most cases, it is usually an opportunity for the auctioneers to give the goods to who they want in the name of being the highest bidder. The exercise was indeed fraudulent. Some highly placed officials dictate who benefits from the process. Most times, they use fronts to benefit from the exercise. The same goods are sold to other people at a price five or 10 times more than what the first person bought it. This is why many people see the auction process as full of malpractices.
Change
In a bid to correct the wrongs of the past, the electronic bidding process was introduced. This, according to the Customs PRO, was part of the reform measures initiated by the Customs boss. Attah said the new strategy allowed everyone to bid, with the highest bidder emerging at the end of the exercise. He said the Comptroller-General suspended the auctioning exercise in order to strengthen the process. He assured that under the new exercise, the process will give everyone interested in the exercise equal opportunity. The CG had noted that the manual process was open to abuse in the past.
Under the new method, interested bidders are expected to produce authentic Tax Identification Number (TIN) from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). They are also to pay a non-refundable administrative fee of N1, 000. The money will be paid into the e-wallet. The application will be accessible online through the trade portal, www.trade.gov.ng.
The service cautioned that there will not be any replacement for items auctioned. Attah said in a statement, “Before this is officially deployed we considered it necessary to adequately sensitise members of the public about those things they should get ready before its deployment. What they need to get ready most importantly now is the Tax Identification Number (TIN). In other words, if you want to be part of this e-auction exercise, you have to approach the FIRS and get your TIN. It is open to all.”
Stakeholders
The e-auction is seen by maritime industry stakeholders as a good development. According to stakeholders who spoke with THISDAY, anything that will reassure Nigerians of the genuineness of an exercise and transparency is the best for the society. A maritime lawyer, Mr Kasa Opara, noted that the past exercise was fraught with malpractices, saying the new policy appears to be credible. But Opara said this will also depend on whether the customs men handling the exercise will not manipulate the electronic system to the benefit of their fronts. He called on the customs boss to use officials with integrity to carry out the exercise, arguing that there is nothing electronic that cannot be violated by those in charge.
Applauding the customs boss for the reform measure, Opara said that it will eliminate the incidence of fraud in the auction exercise. The former chairman, Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), Iju Tony Nwabunike, said the new policy was a good development. He described the new policy as the way forward, saying it will eliminate the incidence of touts taking over the auction exercise, which was the case over the decades.
Nwabunike said, “This is promising to be more transparent. It is fair, as everyone will bid electronically. The manual system was not the best because there used to be a leak of information on what the other person offered.“ He called on the customs management to consider owners of such goods that are to be auctioned first, stressing that this is important particularly if the owner lost those goods in circumstances beyond his control. Nwabunike said, “The owner of the goods who for circumstances beyond his control lost the goods to overtime should be first considered to benefit from the exercise. There are circumstances under which an importer fails to pay and take his goods at the ports before such goods enter overtime. This should be considered so that such importer is given the first right of choice to buy such goods during an auction exercise. It is very important and should be retained in the reform measure by the customs boss.”
