ADEYEMI ADEBAYO reports that despite recent claims of reform,
tightening border security and raking in huge revenues in duties, the Nigerian
Customs Service (NCS) remains poorly managed.
In the 2018 World Bank “Connecting to Compete Report On Trade Logistics In
The Global Economy,” the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) was rated
110 out of 160 countries surveyed by the global body.
Following his electoral victory in
2015, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Hameed Ali, a retired Colonel of the
Nigerian Army as Comptroller General of the NCS. Coming from outside the
Customs hierarchy, not a few Nigerians considered Ali’s appointment abnormal.
But the Buhari administration, with a widely acclaimed agenda of combating
corruption within the bureaucracy, had an eye on the Nigeria Customs. The NCS
has over time been perceived in many quarts as one government agency that needs
to be reformed. The president, therefore, considered it expedient to impose a
retired military officer on the Customs to get rid of real and imaginary
corrupt practices in the service.
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| Hameed Ali Nigeria Customs Service boss |
To highlight the premium the President
placed on who heads the Customs, Ali’s appointment was one of the first he
made, well ahead of that of the supervising minister of the service – finance.
This, has over time, created some frictions between the Finance Minister, Kemi
Adeosun, and the Customs boss as, according to ministry officials, he would not
differ to the minister as required by the rules. Ali has also had some
frictions with federal lawmakers in the course of their oversight functions on
the Customs.
Prior to Ali’s appointment, it was
believed that bureaucracy and corruption in the Customs clearance processes
posed significant challenges to ease of doing business in Nigeria. That has
been a major source of concern to local and foreign investors in the economy.
Soon after he assumed office as
Comptroller General therefore, Ali told a
gathering of senior Customs officers that the mandate given to him by President
Buhari was to tackle corruption in the service, sanitise the system and
increase revenue. He announced that with a note of finality and threat typical
of his military background.
On one occasion, Ali had introduced a
new policy on used vehicles imported into the country. He compelled such
vehicle owners, including those brought into the country about ten years ago,
to comply with some import regulations. Certainly, that did not go down well
with the Nigerian public and the lawmakers as the directive was considered
obnoxious and punitive.
But through sundry measures, the
Nigeria Customs under Ali has in the last three years, increased the revenue
profile of the service. It has also increased boarder security, not only to cub
smuggling activities but also to encourage local production of goods. The
agricultural sector has benefited largely from this with local rice production
taking the centre stage. It is though, a carryover effort by the last
administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The World Bank report evaluated
logistics performance of 160 countries, with data gathered through a global
survey of logistics professionals and experts on how easy or difficult they
experienced trade logistics along six generic dimensions including customs efficiency
and border management, clearance, quality of trade and transport-related
infrastructure. It also considered ease of arranging competitively priced
international shipments, competence and quality of logistics services as well
as ability to track and trace consignments. In addition, the survey covered the
frequency with which shipments reach consignees within scheduled time.
The report indicates that logistics
constraints in Nigeria fall within the range of low and middle-income countries
in the world. In virtually all the indicators, the Nigeria Customs Service was
lowly rated. It ranked 147th in efficiency, 112th in logistics, 110th in
international shipment, and 78th in logistics infrastructure. Also, the NCS was
ranked 112th in logistics competence, 92nd in tracking and tracing, and again,
92nd in timeliness.
Within the West African sub-region,
Cote D’ Ivoire emerged as the best-performing country in trade logistics with a
global ranking of 50. It was followed by the Republic of Benin at the 76th
position; Ghana at 106th; and Nigeria at the 110th position. Furthermore, Togo
is number 118; Gambia 127th; Liberia, 143; and Sierra Leone, 156th.
There are ten countries on the bottom
of the ladder of the global ranking – Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Niger, Sierra
Leone, Eritrea, Libya, Haiti, Zimbabwe and Central African Republic.
According to the report, the six
Logistics Performance Index (LPI) indicators are divided into two main
categories: areas for policy regulation which indicates main inputs to the supply
chain, which includes customs, infrastructure, and services; as well as supply
chain performance outcomes, which corresponds to LPI indicators of time, cost,
and reliability – timeliness, international shipments, and tracking and
tracing.
The report further indicated that: “Because operators on the
ground can best assess the vital aspects of logistics performance, the LPI
relies on an online survey of logistics professionals from the companies
responsible for moving goods around the world: multinational freight forwarders
and the main express carriers.”
It also observed that freight
forwarders and express carriers are best positioned to assess how countries
perform, affirming that their views matter “because they directly affect the
choice of shipping routes and gateways, thereby influencing the decisions of
firms to locate production, choose suppliers, and select target markets.”
Why the Nigeria Customs Service failed
to scale the huddle set by the World Bank, even under an administration that
places it’s anti-corruption crusade in the front burner remains a puzzle to
many stakeholders. But the question some logistics experts have raised is,
aside efforts to eliminate corruption from the system, does the leadership of
the NCS have good understanding of what is required to make the service
competitive at the global level?
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