Customs debunks allegation of compromise in vehicle auction process

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), has denied claims of compromise in the auctioning of overtime cargoes, particularly vehicles.

The National Public Relations Officer of the service, Deputy Comptroller Timi Bomodi, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

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He said the fact that bidding for vehicles was not as frequent as expected did not amount to compromise.

He said there were procedures for having full authority to dispose of seized cargoes, adding that the service would follow such procedures to the latter to avoid any breach.

“All these seizures that are made as a result of long stay at the port among other reasons, have prescribed ways of disposing of them.

“If you make seizures, you have to seek condemnation in court.

“It is after the condemnation that you have the authority to auction them out,” he said.

Bomodi said, “all these things are stated by law and as a service, we are mindful of falling short of the law.

“So, we want to do everything as prescribed by the law and these things take time.

“You have members of the public that think the process is slow but they do not know what happens in the back end. So, we are trying to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s.

“This is so that when we put these vehicles out there we will know that we are meeting the aspirations of the people and expectations of government.”

He said it was in a bid to be as transparent as possible that the service introduced the E-auction platform.

On the next batch of auctioning, Bomodi said Nigerians should be on the watch out as the service was in the process of aggregating the numbers before opening the portal.

He said the public should be weary of fraud, adding that the only authentic website for e-auction is customs.gov.ng (NAN)