Customs Agents Raise Alarm, Cargoes Trapped At Lagos Ports, As Access Bank Service Fails

Customs licensed agents operating at the ports of Lagos have raised an alarm that they have been unable to pay Customs duty on imported cargoes since Monday morning due to poor network from Access Bank.

The National Publicity Secretary of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) Mr Emmanuel Onyeme in a chat with DAILY TREND on Tuesday lamented that other duty collection banks are not having the downtime in service, but only Access Bank.

According to him, the network failures from Access Bank has caused cargoes to be trapped inside the port, while demurrages continue to accrue on them.

The ANLCA image maker explained that Access Bank in its defence has also explained that the service downtime is due hitches being experienced with the Nigeria Customs Service’s B’Odogwu trade platform.

“The challenge started since Monday, 9am in the morning, even myself, I am a victim of it. I submitted some assessments and instructions for payment, I started by going to commercial road Apapa, they said its not working. I brought it down to Tin Can, they said its not working, since yesterday up till now, we could not make duty payments

“They kept saying that it is due to the B’Odogwu platform. Meanwhile, at first bank and some of the other banks, duty are being paid, but access bank is claiming that it is B’Odogwu platform ” he stated.