The Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) has cried out to the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Comptroller General for exoneration in the nefarious activities of dubious importers who hire trucks for the haulage of contraband goods at the ignorance of the truck owners.

The appeal was made by a member of the Port Harcourt Port Chapter of the association, Chief Thompson Tompreye, on Monday, during an interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt.

According to him, “some importers often hire trucks on the pretence of using them to convey goods, but sometimes during the process of negotiation with the drivers, the importers divert the trucks into carriage of prohibited goods and offensive items, thereby implicating the truck owners who give out their trucks innocently”.

This action, he said, has led to Customs impounding and seizing the trucks alongside the prohibited goods, thereby causing the owners great loss of business and untold hardship.

He recalled that in one of the recent seizures made in some of the nation’s seaports, based on the several appeals made by the association, the instruction to release some trucks belonging to the Association of Maritime Truck Owners came from the Comptroller General of Customs, who, after investigation, decided that the owners of the trucks were innocent because dubious importers who hired their trucks did not reveal the reasons for hiring them.

Chief Tompreye, who is a transporter in Port Harcourt port lamented that most times, when such impoundments were made, the importers abandoned the goods and the trucks at the Customs or security agents premises, living the drivers and the truck owners to their fate. “And as long as that contraband goods remains on that truck, the release of that vehicle is not guaranteed, no matter your efforts”, he added.

“That is why we are appealing to Customs and other relevant government agencies to review the policies on this issue and exonerate trucks and the owners in these dubious activities of the importers whose primary focus is to make quick money through short cut” he noted.

He applauded the efforts of the government by mounting scanners in the nations seaports to check the influx of contraband items into the country, saying that, AMATO will continue to support and cooporate with the policies and aspirations of the federal government towards sanitising the ports operations in the country.