The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) yesterday directed its officers to seal off the premises of Stallion/Popular Foods, Masco Agro, Ebony Agro and Conti Agro over alleged N23.6 Billion debt.
The Comptroller-General of NCS, Dikko Inde Abdullahi, accused the management of the firms of refusing to pay outstanding duties of excess rice imported into the country under a preferential duty rate of 10 per cent and levy of 20 per cent in 2014.
The breakdown of the alleged debt revealed that Stallion/Popular foods is owing N17.1billion, OLAMS N4.9 billion, Ebony Agro N328 million and Conti Agro (MILAN), N1billion.
According to the Customs boss, represented by Public Relation Officer, Wale Adeniyi, the NCS monitored the spate of importation over a period of time and discovered that some importers exceeded their approved quota.
Explaining further, the customs boss said, “We wrote the affected importers severally to notify them of duty liability at normal rate if they exceeded their quota. Similarly, we published many notices in national newspapers, including where affected importers were mentioned with outstanding payments.”
He said, “The publications gave ultimatum to pay the outstanding charges against them. However, there were lots of interventions and clarifications required to establish firmly our case against the importers. In some cases, some of them claimed they needed to reconcile figures with the Ministry of Agriculture.
“You may also recall that we threatened to invoke sanctions on these importers if they do not meet their obligations. Today, we are no longer issuing ultimatum. We are ready to walk the talk with decisive actions to recover outstanding duty due to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“Today, we are commencing the sealing up of their warehouses and business premises to prevent operations of those facilities. We will not allow discharge of their import in any of our ports. All these will be done preparatory to instituting full legal proceeding to compel them to pay what they owe Nigeria, when the courts are back from recess,” said the Customs boss.
He said while the NCS is not opposed to concession that helps engineer economic growth, “We shall continue to hold beneficiaries accountable to their obligations. For instance, there are beneficiaries in the Automotive and Hotel/Hospitality Industry who have enjoyed concessions worth billions of Naira. We are compiling the names of these beneficiaries and will request them to justify the concession they enjoyed.
“We are appealing to all genuine importers not to exercise any fear as this is not designed to witch-hunt anyone. This exercise is only about enforcing payments that are legitimately due to the Federal Government of Nigeria. The Customs enforcement team has commenced the closure of the importers’ premises in Lagos and similar exercise was going on in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
