According to the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), an agreement has been reached with its neighboring country, Benin Republic to permit importers to clear their goods from the port in Cotonou.
At the conclusion of a two-day working visit by the director-general and senior officials of the customs service of the Benin Republic, Adewale Adeniyi, acting comptroller-general of the NCS, addressed the audience in Abuja on Tuesday.
According to Adeniyi, the meeting's objectives were to reduce smuggling and improve commercial ties between Nigeria and the Benin Republic. In response to inquiries on the port's opening, Adeniyi stated that customs would make sure that proper procedure was followed.
“We are building confidence in the system offered by the Republic of Benin, our importers are using their ports and vice-versa. If there are people in the Benin Republic who want to use our ports, we try to build trust in our systems,” the director general stated.
“And by virtue of this agreement, what it means is that Nigerian importers willing to use the ports in Cotonou can have their goods cleared in those ports because there would be an opportunity for them to pay duties on goods that are liable for payment of duties. We can account for the duties on those goods in the ports of arrival. So they will now be free to enter Nigeria” he added.
The acting comptroller-general spoke on the subject of smuggling, saying that other items are also smuggled in addition to automobiles. “It goes beyond vehicles. Any goods arriving in Cotonou ports, duty can be accessed and payment can be made and from there, it comes into the Nigerian territory,” the director general continued.
“It is just like what happens when goods come in through Lagos or Port Harcourt; it is pretty much the same. But we have not got there. We have agreed in principle that we can operationalize this. So the steps that we are going to take to get us to that particular destination is what we are going to be working on. It was mentioned in the communique that we are going to establish timelines when we hope to achieve that particular milestone,” he added.
Adewale expressed certainty that the alliance between the two nations will enhance trade facilitation, customs administration, and interregional cooperation in West Africa.
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