The Federal Government has issued a new policy banning officials of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Port Health Service (PHS) and other agencies involved in boarding and rummaging, from receiving souvenirs from captains of ships calling at Nigerian ports.

It was learnt that the decision was taken to curb sharp practices often perpetrated by the officials when they board vessels to perform their statutory responsibilities.

The National Coordinator, Nigerian Ports Process Manual (NPPM), Moses Fadipe, said in Lagos that ship captains were being educated regularly on the need to exercise their rights and refuse to be victims of corrupt officials while in Nigerian waters.

He explained that the issue of taking gifts onboard vessels had gone down drastically because of pressure mounted to curtain sharp practices, saying that in the past, ship captains would even be preparing themselves to present gifts to the government agencies at the port.

Fadipe noted: “I can start and be talking on and on about the achievement we have recorded so far. We have been able to put processes in place. Yes, activities are being done. Are they rightly done? As I speak with you today, in the port sector now, the agencies that have business with vessels know themselves unlike in those days where anybody would just come on board and say “I am a customs official, I want to see what you are doing. Customs know that when a vessel comes, it is not more than two and the maximum time they can spend onboard is 30 minutes.

”Now, captains to a very large extent have known their rights that they are not supposed to give souvenirs onboard the vessel. If you want to entertain your guest, being a foreigner from a foreign nation, you can entertain onboard. He or she would consume that soft drink or cigarettes onboard. If you take such a gift down from the vessel, we have an eagle eye on you,” he explained.

Also, he stressed that the Federal Government was in the process of reintroducing the controversial Cargo Tracking Note (CTN), which was suspended during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The CTN was first introduced in Nigeria on December 9, 2009 by the approval of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) purportedly to check the importation of contraband and harmful goods into Nigeria.

(New Telegraph)