Sufuyan Ojeifo
14 October 2008
Abuja — Just how many private jetties exist in the country? The poser has pitched the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Ahmed Bello Ahmed, against the Minister of Transportation, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke.
Both have disagreed on the number of private jetties before the Senator Heineken Lokpobiri-led Senate Ad-hoc Committee which is investigating the expenditures and policy implementation in the Transportation sector from 1999 to 2007.
While the Minister told the Committee last week that there were over fifty private jetties in the country, the Customs boss contradicted the claim yesterday, saying only one private jetty was known to the Service.
He said that the only private jetty belonged to the Ibrus, which, according to him, was being manned by the men of the service, even as he maintained that the remaining ones were unknown to the Service and therefore the Service was not providing any security in respect of their activities.
According to him, "I don't know anything about the private jetty. As I am talking to you now, the Custom and Excise that I preside over does not know anything about any other private jetty than the one owned by the Ibru conglomerate.
My men only man this one; so I cannot talk about others."He spoke in response to the question by the committee on the number of private jetties that exists in the country.Allison-Madueke had, last week, told the Senate Committee that owners of the over fifty private jetties had sent a petition to her office, in which they complained about a directive that restricted the operations of the private jetties in the country.
The Committee Chairman, Senator Lokpobiri, directed the Customs boss to liaise with the Minister of Transportation and the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) over the logjam at the ports. He expressed fears that some of the ships might be deployed to transport arms and ammunition into the country via the jetties. According to him, "A lot of cargoes are going into this private jetty.
I hope there is no confusion because they are not registered with 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 flooding the streets of Nigeria and you are there to cover all those areas so that such things would not be allow into the country."
He also said that "the idea of free zones does not apply to jeeties. Not even in Freetown is everything free. It is not free for somebody so that he will bring in anything he wants without the necessary checks by the Customs."
The Customs boss, in a quick response, stated, "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 to appear on Friday, last week".
"I was away, going round all the free zones areas- Calabar, Oron, Port Harcourt, Kano- on enlightenment campaigns, telling them (Customs men) to be at alert."
The Committee insisted yesterday that the proliferation of illegal private jetties in the country might spell doom for nation security.It demanded an investigation into the development.The Customs Service also used the hearing to inform the committee that it has made a remittance of N753billion to the CBN account from 1999 till date
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