The leadership of Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), Monday denied any communications or directive instructing the Service to rescind decision banning vehicle imports from the land borders.
In an interview on a national Television monitored in Lagos, the new spokesman of the Service, Mr. Joseph Attah said as far as the NCS is concerned, it will continue to track the new ban pending when the National Assembly will either communicate a directive or invite us for explanation of the policy.
Already, investigations along the land border posts show that thousands or cars valued at over N100bn are trapped and the owners are working and making top consultations to see how the ban will be reversed.
It would be recalled that smuggling of cars via land borders had robbed off the economy billions of naira on a yearly basis and the new policy is intended to change the trend for the interest of the nation.
Besides, the lead body of agents clearing cars at the borders are calling on authorities to give more time for them to clear their backlog at the borders, but the Customs image maker insists that the order is still in force and there had been no directive to give additional grace period.
He further argued that the Service had been making very low revenue on vehicles imported via land borders, adding that whereas only about 300,000 cars are officially cleared on land borders while over five million are smuggled through same routes. he stated that the system is only on a continuous robbery of the economy.
