Customs CG warns banks against sabotaging e-auction system

Ifeanyi Onuba, Abuja

The Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (retd), on Tuesday described the non-participation of Deposit Money Banks in the electronic auction system of the Nigerian Customs Service as a sabotage of the country’s economy.

Ali stated this in his opening remarks at a meeting with chief executives of all the DMBs held at the headquarters of the NCS in Abuja.

The meeting was convened by the CG following the refusal of 23 banks to hook up to the electronic auction platform of the NCS.

Since July 3 when the electronic auction portal was launched by Ali, only Jaiz Bank Plc has hooked up to the platform with other banks refusing to participate in the scheme.

The sum of N25m has so far been generated as duty from 40 items auctioned by the NCS, while 2,489 Nigerians have so far bid by logging onto the electronic auction portal.

Ali said the non-participation of the banks was not acceptable to the government as their action was denying Nigerians the opportunity to benefit from the scheme.

He said in addition, the government had lost huge revenue that could not be quantified due to the banks’ refusal to participate in the e-auction scheme.

For instance, he stated that while a lot of people had indicated interest in bidding for the seized vehicles being put up for auction, the inability of some of the bidders to use their respective banks to load the e-wallet with cash and continue the bidding process was a major challenge to the initiative.

He said, “This meeting won’t have been necessary if things have gone well. We discussed with you at the preliminary stage and everybody was carried along. But the banks decided to pull out at the last minute. About 22 to 23 duty collecting banks failed at the last minute. We need to get across to the head of the banks for the way forward.

“This is clearly an act of economic sabotage, because the money we are going to collect neither belongs to the Customs nor coming to me, but to the Treasury Single Account for onward distribution by the Federation Account Allocation Committee. You are doing this? What other name do I call it?”

Ali noted that as a result of the invitation of the banks to the meeting, about 18 of them had quickly hooked onto the portal.

“We are taken aback by your action, but I’m happy this morning that about 17 banks have hooked to it to collect duty,” he added.

He faulted insinuation in some quarters that only Jaiz Bank was allowed to participate in the scheme in order to promote religion and ethnicity, adding that this was made possible because all the other banks refused to participate.

The Customs CG added, “This has nothing doing with Muslim or the North. The Head of Department of this project is a Christian and a southerner.

“For anybody to insinuate that we did this deliberately is annoying. The names of people who emerged winners of bids are available for all to verify. It’s unfortunate that in Nigeria, everything is given either ethic or religion colouration.”

In his comments, the Managing Director, Fidelity Bank Plc, Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo, said that it was not true that banks were sabotaging the process, adding that the delay in joining the platform was as a result of technical hitches.

“I doubt if anybody would want to sabotage the process. Information Technology can be a great challenge even after it has been test-run. We will speak to our operations people,” Okonkwo added.

  Copyright PUNCH.
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

Contact: editor@punchng.com

 

Source: Punchng
Customs CG warns banks against sabotaging e-auction system

The post Customs CG warns banks against sabotaging e-auction system appeared first on Naijadailyfeed.