The Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Mr. Jacob Gyang Buba, insisted on Tuesday, that the service had had no improper deals with the Nigerian subsidiary of Panalpina World Transport Holding Limited, a Swiss freight forwarder.
Buba said this in an interview on Tuesday with our correspondent in Abuja after the presentation of 15 vehicles to the service by the Police Equipment Foundation.
He said that he was not aware of the alleged improper payments, nor of any investigations on the operations of the service.
He said, �As a customs service, we are not aware of any investigations to do with Panalpina. However, I am aware that in-house, Panalpina has been served some demand notices to pay up some duties that were short-collected; we are sorting that out with the company.�
According to him, �If Panalpina has any case to do with any external company, wherever they are based, that would be entirely their business. But I�m not aware of anything to do with Panalpina and Customs as an organisation or any individual customs officer.�
A report by Bloomberg News last month had indicated that Panalpina initiated to probe after its United States unit was asked to provide documents about shipping services to Nigeria for one of its clients.
The authorities also reportedly extended their request for information on shipments to other Panalpina clients in Nigeria.
Also, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had said that it was investigating various allegations of bribery made against the Customs.
But Buba debunked reports of allegations of corruption in the service, adding, �The issues of allegations of corruption fly all over the place; we are the first people to be accused of that. But we make bold to say that our records are clean, and anybody can come and investigate.�
The Customs boss said it was unfortunate that most reporters did not bother to find out the facts about the situation before going to press with their reports.
�Those who have written those stories did not care to come and verify with us before jumping to conclusions. We wish them luck, whatever their purpose is. But you can be assured that the expenditure of funds within the Customs has always followed due process,� he said.