Leadership (Abuja)
Andrew Oota
14 October 2008
Transportation Minister Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke and the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service yesterday disagreed at the public hearing of the Ad-hoc Committee of the Senate investigating the transportation sector over the number of jetties in Nigeria.
The Comptroller-General of Customs, Ahmed Bello Ahmed, told the panel that there is only one private jetty, which, according to him, belongs to the Ibru family, while the Minister was of the view that there are more than 50 jetties.
Ahmed also told the panel that his men only manned the existing jetty, stressing that the whereabouts of the rest of the jetties can only be accounted for by the terminal officers at the ports.
His words: "I don't know anything about the private jetty. As I am talking to you now the Customs and Exercise that I preside over does not know anything about any other private jetty than the one owned by the Ibru conglomerate. My men only manned this one, so I cannot say about others."
The Minister of Transportation had last week told the Senate committee that the over 50 private jetty owners had petitioned her over a directive that restricted the operation of the private jetties that move oil and gas in and across the ports.
Worried by this position, the committee chairman, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, requested the customs boss to make consultation with the Minster of Transportation and the Nigeria Ports Authority in order to arrive at an agreeable position to avoid the situation the two positions were dragging the committee to.
The committee chairman noted that some of the cargoes may be used to bring into the country arms and ammunition, saying that these jetties carry different kinds of cargoes across the Nigerian ports.
According to the committee chairman, "A lot of cargoes are going into these private jetties. I hope there is no confusion because they were not registered with the customs as the Comptroller-General has just mentioned. We have a lot of arms in this country and possibly a lot of them may have come through these private jetties which you are telling us are not in existence. A lot of arms and ammunition are flooding the streets of Nigeria and you are there to cover all those areas so that such things would not be allowed into the country."
He continued: "The idea of free zones does not apply. Not even in Freetown is everything free. It's not free for somebody so that he will bring in anything he wants without the necessary checks by customs."
But the Comptroller-General responded: "On the issue of the arms and ammunition passage on our sea, that is why I could not make it on Friday when you invited me. I was going around to check for myself; in fact, it was this issue that made me not appear on Friday, last week. I was away going round all the free zones areas - Calabar, Oron, Port Harcourt, Kano - on enlightenment campaign, telling them to be at alert."
Also, the Nigeria Customs Service yesterday told the Senate ad-hoc committee investigating the transportation sector that the service had made remittance of N753 billion to the CBN account from 1999 till date.
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