The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has come under criticism for claiming to have realized a paltry N556.74 million from its ongoing e-auction sale of 462 impounded exotic vehicles.
This indicated that the vehicles were sold at an average price of N1.25m. However, car dealers said the market value of most of the vehicles were in excess of N10m.
“None of the vehicles is less than N7m as of today. They sold the vehicles to themselves through a third-party. This is against the law and should be probed,” a car dealer alleged.
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Another car dealer, Adelabi Abideen, added, “we are not talking about Nigeria-used cars here. You can’t get any Nigeria-used car for less than N2m, so how do you send brand new and Tokunbo cars for that amount. It is ridiculous. Some of those cars on the portal worth more than N25m,” he said
The 100 percent Compliance team of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), had in a statement, alleged monumental fraud against members of the e-auction committee.
In the statement signed by National Coordinator of the Compliance Team, Alhaji Tanko Ibrahim, it was alleged that over 300 impounded vehicles were allotted to one person at the rate of N10,000 per vehicle.
However, the National Public Relations Officer of the NCS, CSC Abdullahi Maiwada, in a statement said from the data generated upon completing five successful bidding windows, 13,605 applicants registered in five windows on its e-auction portal.
Maiwada stated that during the process, 476 impounded vehicles were uploaded on the service portal and that 462 of them were won by the applications.
“The government realized N556,738,736 as revenue from the e-auction sale. It begs the question of where the allegations of monumental stealing by the Customs Auction Committee and the committee’s plans to dispose-Off overtime containers is coming from,” he added.
According to him, the NCS is a law-abiding government organization dedicated to maintaining the most outstanding levels of accountability and transparency in all its activities and that it takes any accusations of improper behaviour seriously.
“We wish to categorically deny involvement in fraudulent activities or underhand dealings in the e-auctioning of vehicles or other goods. The NCS Auction Committee operates within the confines of the law and adheres strictly to established guidelines and procedures for disposing of seized/overtime goods.
“Regarding the allegation that over 300 vehicles have been auctioned to just one individual via the e-auction window after purported underhand payments, we wish to state that this is entirely false, misguided, and spurious.
“Furthermore, suggesting that a token sum of N10,000 is collected as duties to the Federal Government on the e-auction window, which has a reserved price of N400, 000 is indeed misleading and misrepresentation of fact,” he said.
