Senate passes customs bill, wants CG appointed from NCS

By Ezrel Tabiowo Abuja

Poised to ensure that candidates appointed to head the Nigeria Customs Service are subject to scrutiny, the Senate in the Nigerian Customs Service Management Act (Repeal and Reenactment) Bill, 2017 passed yesterday, has recommended that the President shall only appoint from the service, subject to the confi rmation of the Senate, a Comptroller-General. Th e provision, if signed into law, prohibits the President from appointing any candidate not serving in the Nigeria Customs Service as Comptroller-General to oversee the aff airs of the agency. Also, the bill provides that the Senate must confi rm any candidate appointed by the President to head the service, a provision which runs contrary to previous practice.

It could be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari had appointed the present Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hammed Ali, a retired Army Offi cer, without seeking the confi rmation of the Senate under the repealed law. Th e passage of the bill yesterday by the Senate followed a clause by clause consideration of report of Committee on Customs and Excise on the bill. Presenting the report, the Chairman of the committee, Sen. Hope Uzodinma said the Act establishing Customs had not undergone a major overhaul since 1958. He said the passage of the bill would help to reposition the service which was one of the major sources of revenue generation for the Federal Government. “At the beginning of this senate a committee was set up to identify the money bills that will help our distressed economy and one of the bills that the senate earmarked for amendment is the Customs and Excise Management Act. “Th e primary purpose of amending this bill is to bring discipline and prudence into Nigeria Customs Service as a major revenue earning department of government. “It will be in charge of discipline, conduct, training, deployment of offi cers, and it has the powers of oversight the various customs operations while ensuring that it is not diff erent from customs in other clients.

“Th e Chairman of the Commission will be appointed by the President, subject to Senate confi rmation and members of the commission are going to be statutory organs of government, Federal Ministry of Finance. In his remarks, the President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, said the passage of the bill when assented to would bring about the modernization of customs procedure in accordance with requirement of the Revised Convention. He said, “it will also ensure that Nigeria complied with international commitments of World Trade Organisation (WTO).

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