Customs refutes freight forwarders’ claim on server failure

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has described as untrue the claim by the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) that its server keeps failing, with one lasting for four days and causing a backlog of uncleared cargoes.

The association had in a recent letter to the Minister of Finance, alleged that the network problem lingered for more than four days, causing freight forwarders to incur losses.
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The Customs Public Relations Officers of the three busiest ports in the country said such server failure never happened in their commands.

Abubakar Usman of Apapa command, Uche Ejesieme of Tin Can command and Ifeoma Onuigbo of Onne Port command, 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 of downtime.”
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Also reacting Ejesieme said the Tin Can command has no record of a backlog of uncleared cargoes due to network issues, describing the allegation as lies.

“Network has never been our challenge. Anytime there is an issue of network failure, we notify Webb Fontaine and Interswitch, the technical partners to Customs to address it.
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“Don’t forget that we don’t control the network. The Federal Government appointed Webb Fontaine and Interswitch to provide the technical support, so the network has never been the problem.

Occasionally it comes and goes; sometimes it fluctuates and causes delays, but it is not as rampant as they make it to be. It is exaggerated,” he said.

On her part, Onuigbo said: “I am hearing this for the first time from you who is asking me. We have never had such a problem in Onne. Our system is working fine and no one has complained about it.”
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