By Elizabeth Uwandu
Importers who abused the compliance of the fast track scheme introduced by the Nigerian Customs Service, are set to be removed from the scheme.
This is as Customs through its Public Relations Officer, Joseph Attah said measures are in place to facilitate the processing of Form ‘M’ and the issuance of Pre-Arrival Assessment Report. PAAR, which had been delayed.
Attah, in a statement, affirmed that normal speed in the process of issuance of PAAR will be restored immediately the backlog accumulated due to the intervention was cleared from the system.
“The Nigeria Customs Service wishes to explain the current delay in the approval of both Form ‘M’s as well as the issuance of Pre-Arrival Assessment Reports (PAAR) at the PAAR Ruling Centre in the interest of stakeholders.
“The delay being experienced in the process of Form ‘M’ and PAAR now is due to internal auditing of fast-track beneficiaries which hitherto made up 20 per cent in order to fish out the non-compliant beneficiaries.
“NCS has now put in place modalities to identify this group of beneficiaries with a bid to removing them from the scheme while compliant ones continue to enjoy the fast track facility.
“It will be recalled that the timelines for approval of Form ‘M’ and issuance of PAAR were approved by the Customs Comptroller-General, Hameed Ibrahim Ali in April 2018. The approval allocated a maximum of 24 hours process time for Form ‘M’ and the issuance of PAAR after the upload of all relevant documents from the duty collecting banks.
“Nigeria Customs Service will continue to uphold the timelines and facilitate the timely process of all imports and exports in line with Federal Government effort to make Nigeria an investment destination.
“While craving the understanding of our dear stakeholders in the on-going effort to clean the system, please be assured of the Service determination to make import and export processes even better.” NCS secretary stated.
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