The Nigeria Customs Service has described as untrue recent allegation made by National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) that its server keeps failing, recently for up to four days at a stretch, causing backlog of uncleared cargoes.
Checks revealed that Customs Public Relations Officers of the three busiest ports in the country debunked breakdown of server failure saying such never happened in their commands.
Abubakar Usman, Uche Ejesieme and Ifeoma Onuigbo of Apapa, Tincan Island and Onne Port Commands who spoke in different telephone interviews described it as untrue.
Usman said “Not to the best of my understanding in Apapa. They should be specific about which of the ports, we did not experience four days down time”
Reacting too Ejesieme said “It can’t be Tin Can. We are not aware of that. We don’t have backlog of uncleared cargoes due to network issues, that’s a lie.
“Network has never been our challenge. Anytime there is issue of network failure, we notify Webb Fontaine and Interswitch, the technical partners to Customs to address it.
“Don’t forget that we don’t control network. The federal government appointed Webb Fontaine and Interswitch to provide the technical support, so network has never been the problem. Occasionally it comes and goes; sometimes it fluctuates, but that wasn’t the problem at all.
“Sometimes it causes delays, but it is not as rampant as they make it to be. It is exaggerated.
Onuigbo told our reporter that ” I am hearing this for the first time from you who is asking me. We have never had such problem in Onne. Our system is working fine and no one has complained about it”
The association had in a recent letter to the Minister of Finance alleged that the network problem lingers for more than four days causing freight forwarders to incur costs.
