N225m BMW cars: Finance Ministry granted N10.1m import waiver to Coscharis Motors
(Nigeria) The Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, on Wednesday said that
the Federal Ministry of Finance granted a waiver of N10.1 million to Coscharis
Motors for the purchase of the two BMW cars by the Nigeria Civil Aviation
Authority, NCAA.
The NCS told the House of Representatives Committee on
Aviation investigating the alleged importation of the cars by the NCAA for the
Minister of Aviation Ms Stella Oduah that the said waiver was to import 300
vehicles, including the controversial two BMW cars.
Representative of the Comptroller-General of the NCS, Mr
Manasseh Jatau, a Deputy Comptroller of Customs, disclosed this in his
presentation at the public hearing of the case on Wednesday in Abuja.
He said the point of entry of the cars was Tincan Port in
Lagos, adding that no import duty was collected from the owner of the goods
(Coscharis Motors) as a one-year duty waiver for 300 cars was granted in the
name of the company for importation of cars for Eko 2012 Games in Lagos.
Jatau said the exemption on the two BMW cars along with 298
others was at the expense of the Lagos State Government, who would have been
the beneficiaries of the payment.
Documents presented to the committee by the NCS showed that
the Import Duty, VAT, ETLS, CISS and Port Charges Waiver Certificate was issued
by the Ministry of Finance on November
20, 2012.
The document was signed by the Director of Revenue, Mrs Rose
Ngozi-Maranzu, on behalf of the finance minister.
Jatau also disclosed that it contrary to earlier reports the Office of the National Security Adviser
duly issued an approval for the purchase of the armoured cars.
He said a signed copy of a pre-shipment inspection end-user
certificate issued by the NSA on June 6, 2013, showed that due approval was
gotten from the office for Coscharis Motors to import three armoured cars
valued at 223,653.48 dollars into Nigeria for commercial purposes.
The document, identified as ``Form A’’, had the stamp of the
Office of the National Security Adviser appended on it.
Members of the Committee were engaged, for over 30 minutes,
in a heated argument with Coscharis Motors in a move to ascertain the market
price of the vehicles.
While the committee insisted that the current price of the
vehicle should not exceed N50 million each, Coscharis outrightly refuted this
position, saying it could never be the case with BMW B7 series anywhere in the
world.
Coscharis, represented by the company's Chairman Mr Cosmos
Maduka, alleged that the NCAA demanded
an increase in the prices of the controversial vehicles over what the company
had submitted earlier.
``NCAA told us that the initial price is not
proper," Maduka, said.
He also said the cars were sold to NCAA as used vehicles
following the delay encountered when the company sought clearance from the
office of the NSA.
But the committee insisted that Coscharis deceived the
public and the government by saying that the cars were bought for NCAA when
actually they were purchased on behalf of the Lagos State Government.
The committee also accused the company of ripping Nigerians
off.
According to the committee, the change in the prices of the
vehicles from the initial N70 million to
N127.5 million, even when the company had admitted that it got waiver from the
government not to pay customs duties on the cars, cast aspersion on the
company’s position on the prices.
NAN also reports that the hearing later took a dramatic turn
when the committee discovered that the company supplied different make and type
of vehicles.
A member of the committee and spokesperson of the House of
Representatives, Hon. Zakari Mohammed, said that the chassis number of one of
the vehicles inspected by a delegation from the committee read DW68011.
He argued that the number differed from what Coscharis gave
in their correspondences with the office of the NSA.
But in a swift response, Maduka refuted this, quoting the
chassis numbers as 68044 and 68432, respectively.
He, however, promised to send the certificate issued by the
NSA for the purchase of to the committee.
Earlier, the company had requested to play a video to
demonstrate how exotic the cars were in a bid to justify the prices, but the
request was turned down by the committee.
Also the former Acting Director-General of NCAA, Mr Joyce
Nkemakolam told the Committee that he approved a leasing agreement rather than
a loan, with First Bank Plc on the purchase of the cars because of an advise he
received from his colleagues.
A member of the committee, Rep. Raphael Nnanna-Igbokwe had
asked why the NCAA insisted on going on with the leasing agreement after being
informed by First Bank Plc that it was not disposed to leasing facility but
loan facility.
``I signed the
agreement based on advice from my colleagues that leasing and loan facilities
are the same. I thought the templates are the same,’’ Nkemakolam said.
But Committee was shocked when the acting Director-General
said though as the Chief Executive Officer during the period under
investigation, he was not aware of the details of the delivery of the two
vehicles.
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