The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) says no fewer than 43 persons have won the bidding of vehicles in the first 48 hours of the newly launched e-auction platform.

Mr Joseph Attah, the Service's Public Relations Officer, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja that the platform “is active and working.”

Attah made the clarification following numerous complaints from interested bidders that they could not access the Customs’ auction websites.

The Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), on July 3 in Abuja inaugurated the e-auction platform aimed at giving all Nigerians equal opportunities to partake in bidding for seized vehicles and to increase Customs’ revenue.

Attah said:“At the first day of the launching, there were technical challenges with the e-auction platform and these challenges have already been resolved.

“Potential bidders can now register smoothly without hitches.

“The first 48 hours expired at 12 Noon on Wednesday and already 43 persons have won the bidding including a journalist. So you can see this platform is working.

“For now it is only Jaiz Bank that is on the platform. Other designated banks are having Interswitch issues and they will soon be on board as soon as they ratify the issues.

“I understand that today one bank will soon be on board.”

Attah called on potential bidders to be calm and make use of the bank available on the platform for now until other banks could come on board.

“For those trying to register, they should go to the designated bank area on the platform, click on the Jaiz Bank and print out the page from their system and go to the bank to pay.

“This means the person has activated with Jaiz Bank and the bank can key you into the bank system to enable you pay the N1,000 administrative fee, which will be transferred to your e-wallet.”

NAN reports that between 4:10 p.m. and 4:45 p.m. on Wednesday, July 5, the platform was showing ‘Under Maintenance.’

The platform also gave an instruction saying: “Dear user, the server is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance or upgrade. Please refresh the page in a few minutes.”

However, after many attempts to refresh the page by NAN correspondent, it still showed the same instruction. (NAN)

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