Customs Alleged Misconduct Clearing Agents Petition Jonathan

Clearing agents at the Onne Port in Rivers State have petitioned President Goodluck Jonathan over alleged professional irregularities, extortion of money and embezzlement by officers and men of the customs service posted to the Onne Port.

A spokesman of the clearing agents Prince Owen Mekula who spoke with The Tide Saturday alleged that the customs officers have converted the port to be their gold-mine.

He claimed that the development has frustrated the 48-hour goods clearance introduced by the federal government even as the customs officers have allegedly prevented clearing agents from getting free printing of duty assessment form at cyber cafes.

Prince Mekwa alleged that the practice makes it convenient for the customs officials to forcefully extort money from the clearing agents before they could pay their import duties at the bank as directed by the federal government.

According to him, the practice is perfected by a ‘Kangaro’ department called

‘Alert’ which makes it difficult for a container to be released except through extortion.

On garments textiles and other items lifted by the federal government the clearing agent cried out that customs officials allegedly demand financial gratification of N1,475,000 for 1x20ft container over the N1,100,000 paid to the federal government account.

Also speaking, Elder Bestman Irechukwu said the development has pushed clearing agents/ importers to the wall hence the appeal to the federal and state governments to investigate the matter towards restoring sanity in the port.

He argued that if urgent steps were not taken to address the issue, it might lead to violence and restiveness by the Niger Delta youths who might lose their source of livelihood at the port.

Though several attempts to speaker with the customs spokesman at the port were not fruitful, a top officer of the customs service who spoke under anonymity described the allegations as baseless.

He however, assured that investigations will be carried out to ascertain the veracity of the claims by the clearing a gents.