EKO NEWS

Woman Narrates How Customs Service Sold Her Imported Vechicle Despite Paying Duties

Published

3 years ago

Sep 17, 2021.

Smart

Adetoro says she couldn’t pay immediately due to illness.

A businesswoman named Adetoro Olowe has accused the Nigeria Customs Service of selling off a car she imported despite paying all necessary fees.

According to the woman, she couldn’t pay clearing duties immediately the vehicle she imported arrived in the country due to illness.

EkoHotBlog learnt that immediately she recovered, she started the process of clearing her vehicle, a Mercedes Benz Dodge Sprinter with chassis number WD5PD644345651104. However, despite all her efforts, the vehicle got auctioned without her knowledge, she lamented.

“The bus was shipped to Nigeria in 2019. I was not feeling fine when it got to the country, but about three months later, I paid the Customs duty. When I paid, the telex from the shipping company got delayed, which made the vehicle enter overtime”, she narrated.

“I had already exited the job from the Customs gate, but it was just for me to pay the shipping company and take delivery of my vehicle. When I wanted to take the delivery in 2020, they said Customs had moved the vehicle to their Ikorodu terminal, where they keep overtime vehicles. I asked them what I should do next, and they said since I had paid customs duty and exited from customs gate, I had the right to process it.”

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“I went to Ikorodu and saw the bus there. I met an officer, who said I should go to Abbey Road, Yaba, for clearance. When I got there, they saw my documents and said they would send the clearance to Ikorodu and I would take delivery of the car there, but when I returned to Ikorodu, they started giving me different excuses.”

“I liaised with an officer there and I was calling to know when my vehicle would be released, but it was one excuse after the other till 2021. I returned to Ikorodu with my husband in May and met one officer Ado, who brought out a gazette and said customs do not use the overtime clearance we collected from Yaba again and asked for my chassis number, which I gave him.”
The wowan recalled that she paid N20,000 when the officer she met told her that she should pay for a delisting application of her vehicle which will be sent to Abuja. The application was not processed in Abuja, she later learnt.

“I called the officer in charge of my documents to ask what was delaying my work, but he told me that they wanted to auction my vehicle. I told him that he could not auction my vehicle because the law says if you’ve paid customs duty, they don’t have the right to auction.

“To my surprise, someone called me last Thursday and said he saw a number on the bus and that they had auctioned it. I went there on Tuesday and confirmed it.

“I met their comptroller there and showed him the original documents of my vehicles and all the processes I had done and the man said the order was from Abuja, but the only thing I could do was to write a letter for stoppage application so that they would stop the auction, which I had done. But now, I hear that someone wanted to take the bus out,” she added.

When contacted by News from Punch Newspasper, EkoHotBlog learnt that the the Comptroller of Overtime and Auction, Abuja, Yakubu Salihu, remained adamant that it is impossible for a car to be auctioned after the owner must have paid the clearing duties.

“Nobody came to me to report anything. Let her write to the Customs Comptroller General, it will come to my office and we will respond positively on that, but there is no issue of Customs auctioning vehicles after paying duties”.

“People have been saying we are auctioning this and that, but there is a process, and the guideline must be followed. There is no way someone will effect payment and do all necessary things and say we are auctioning their vehicle, it is not done, it is misleading” he said.

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