Reps raises concern over lack of scanners at seaports in Nigeria

The House of Representatives Committee on Customs and Excise has admonished that the lack of scanners at the ports across Nigeria poses as threat to the country’s security.

Chairman of the committee, Leke Abejide, who raised the alarm when he led members of the committee on an oversight visit to Nigeria Customs Service formations in Zone C, with the headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, said the unavailability of scanners could aid importation of illegal arms and ammunition, thereby compromising the nation’s security.

Abejide, bemoaned that the country had been exposed to possible importation of illegal goods as well as losing huge revenue that could have accrued to the Federal Government.

The lawmaker disclosed that the scanners procured for the Customs had been abandoned over the years, stressing that the equipment was withdrawn from the companies that installed them and given to another company that lacked the technical capacity to maintain them.

According to Committee Chairman, the House would carry out a comprehensive investigation of the abandonment as well as decayed in various Customs formations across the country.

The committee members also expressed their displeasure at the long duration of the abandonment, noting that though there was the need to provide more scanners for the Customs, there was also the need to outsource the servicing.

They queried why the firm that installed the scanners was sacked and engaging another one without the capacity to handle them.

Abejide canvassed to declare an emergency on the roads leading to the ports in the zone, adding that if nothing urgent was done, the present situation at the Apapa ports would soon be replicated in the zone.

The lawmaker pledged that the committee would work together with the leadership of the NCS to remove those he described as quack agents operating at the ports.

The Controller, Onne Area Command, NCS, Auwal Mohammed, informed the delegation that the zone generated about $136 million from exports within the zone, between 2019 and 2020.

Mohammed also lamented that the bad state of access roads to the port and also the poor road network in the country was hampering export from the port.

The Controller, Onne Area Command also predicted that the volume of exports from the zone would increase with good access roads and rail lines linking the port as well as boost revenue collection.