Customs Command Releases 7,087 PAARs In Two Months

The Apapa Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) last Monday said that it has granted a total of 7,928 provisional release of containers trapped during the handover of the Destination Inspection Scheme by the Service Providers.
The Command also said that a total of 7,087 Pre-Arrival Assessment Reports (PAARs) has been transmitted by the Service since the takeover of the Destination Inspection Scheme from the Service Providers by the Nigeria Customs Service.
The Customs Area Controller of the Command, Comptroller Charles Edike who made this known while playing host to the visiting Secretary General of the World Customs Organization (WCO), Mr. Kunia Mikuriya at the command’s headquarters at Apapa, Lagos also disclosed that a total of 1,952 SGDs had been perfected during the same period.
Edike told the visiting secretary general that at the inception of PAAR, the service was inundated with some teething problems but was quick to add that those teething problems encountered during the period were being surmounted as the service now transmit between 900 PAARs  on daily basis at the customs headquarters.
He recalled that on the eve of the handover of the Destination Inspection Scheme, the Service Providers dumped over 99,000 form M at the portal of the Nigeria Customs Service which the Comptroller General of customs quickly issued a circular authorizing a provisional release which he said was self assessing.
According to him, “with a circular giving the importers and agents rooms for self assessment using Form M value, using the final invoice to assess themselves and to apply to Customs Area Controllers for provisional release and that eased the tension and so importers and agents were applying for provisional release and based on that, we now cleared all the backlogs”.
He informed that he joined the Customs in 1984 and all the while he had been a customs officer, core customs duties were being handled by private operators until now when for the first time the customs had fully taken over the customs clearing procedures and trade facilitation describing that as a no mean achievement.
The Customs boss attributed the takeover of the Destination Inspection Scheme to a visionary and transformational leadership of the Comptroller General of Customs, Alhaji Dikko Inde Abdullahi who he said had shown direction and leadership since mounting the saddle as the Comptroller General of the Service.
He therefore assured the Secretary General of WCO that the Destination Inspection Scheme would succeed under Comptroller General Dikko as according to him, “Nigeria Customs Service is more than able to steer the ship of P AAR and the Nigerian trade hub to a safe destination”.
On his part, the Comptroller General of Customs, Alhaji Dikko Inde Abdullahi who was represented at the occasion by the Deputy Comptroller General, Akinade Adewuyi thanked President Goodluck Jonathan for allowing the Nigeria Customs Service to take over the Destination Inspection Scheme at the expiration of the contract of the Service Providers.
Adewuyi as well thanked the Management and officers of the Nigeria Customs Service for giving their support to the Comptroller General of Customs to make the transition a success saying that without their support, they wouldn’t have achieve all they had achieved.