Nigeria Customs Service is set to begin auction of seized and condemned good only to qualified persons on July 1, 2017 .
The decision to reopen the suspended auction scheme after about 18 months is coming following successful test running of the new electronic auction portal.
The new date for the auction was contained in a statement obtained from the Nigeria Customs Service website which listed ownership of Tax Identification Number (TIN) among others as criteria to buy any of the goods put up for sale under the scheme.
Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd) had suspended the auction of condemned seizures to allow for a more transparent and electronic method that allows equal opportunities for all participants.
“After repeated tests of the e-auction platform Nigeria Customs is now set to deploy the e-auction portal on July 1, 2017,” the statement said
“The portal is now fully networked to designated banks to ensure money accruing from the auction gets to the Central bank of Nigeria Treasury Single Account for transparency and accountability
“After receiving the report, the Comptroller General of Customs ,Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali(Rtd) directed the auction committee to ensure that only proper pictures of the goods as well as detailed information about each are uploaded to avoid any misgiving” the statement said.
The statement added that the CG asked for more weeks to enable interested members of the public to obtain their Tax identification numbers (TIN) from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) before the commencement date .
”The platform which is highly interactive will only give access to holders of TIN. Such tax payers will log in, read the guidelines, pay the non refundable one thousand auction fee and proceed to bid for the items on auction.
”Recall that the CGC resumed duty in 2015 with a three pronged Presidential mandates of Restructure, Reform and seek ways of raising revenue”
”Manual auction was identified as non competitive and opened to abuses hence it was suspended”
”The committee set up has now developed an e-auction platform that is secured transparent and guarantees equal opportunities to all Nigerians.
”All interested persons are therefore advised to get ready by obtaining their Tax identification numbers issued by Federal Inland Revenue. ”
It is expected that the new move will further boost customs revenue as seized and condemned goods worth billions of Naira are to be sold out with a better value than what obtained in the manual auction regime