By Kenneth Jukpor
Nigerian ports may witness a serious upheaval which may led to congestion in vehicle clearance at the ports due to the alleged high and outrageous inputs on a new Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) valuation system by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
The Vice President of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Dr. Kayode Farinto made this argument while engaging the media at the weekend said the VIN valuation policy introduced for all imported vehicles by the Customs is not helping the nation’s economy as it lacks predictability and unable to drive revenue collection.
According to Farinto, in the last one week clearance of vehicles had to be stopped due to the outrageous VIN values by the Customs.
VIN was recently introduced by the NCS to give a uniform and acceptable values to all imported vehicles into Nigeria not minding the port of landing. Hitherto, vehicles of same year and manufacturer were always charged different duties in different ports in Nigeria.
Narrating the difficulties experienced by Freight Forwarders, Farinto said that the main purpose of VIN valuation for imported vehicles has been defeated even as thousands of imported vehicles are currently trapped at the seaports.
“We won’t be tired of informing the Nigerian government what is happening in our industry. In the last one week, our members were unable to clear vehicles from the ports as a result of introduction of VIN by Customs.
“Let me take you memory lane, why should we opt for VIN valuation? You will agree with me that before now, I was one of those that said there was no uniform value on the clearance of vehicles. For example, if you have 2015 Camry in Tin Can, Apapa and PTML, you will never pay the same duty on them and these vehicles are going to the same market.
“This is causing serious unease for our members, it encourages corruption and it is making us not to have predictability. One of the first criteria of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is, there must be predictability in Customs clearance. Give us uniform value or key into the system operated in Ghana where the issue of VIN came onboard,” Farinto said.
While he didn’t outrightly condemn VIN, Farinto lamented that the figures inputted are very outrageous.
“I have three examples here, I look at the system and I look at MAZDA 2007 vehicle, the system is giving them over $5000. And what is the value of 2007 vehicle in the market? You can even view it in American market.”
“Another one, we have an Honda 2013 that was bought for around $6000 or $7000. If you access the VIN value, it will give you over N2million as duty and if you convert it to dollars, that is over $15000. These are things that is killing our economy. Another one is 2009 Honda, which ordinarily, the system is giving over $6000, meanwhile it is less than $2000 when we were even clearing it,” he said.
It could be recalled that freight forwarders have protested the VIN valuation policy at the PTML command recently calling for a review or manual valuation.
