Scandal: Nigeria Customs Service fails to pay contractors

1. Sad state of Non-payment of contractors in Nigeria even when the money is there, case in point NIGERIAN CUSTOMS SERVICE

2. Inspections done/ Certificates of completions issued on most if not all of the jobs.

3. Jobs duly issued; legal papers signed and completed, most been used as we speak by the clients.

4. Some of the completions are over 2 years ago and not even a word on payments.

5. NCS has the money to pay but The leadership is just refusing to pay, in this case Nigerian Customs the CG even had the audacity to return money to the Nigerian treasury just to curry favor with the president even though he was owing this contractors. He on the other hand draws his salary every month while this contractors grow more indebted and poorer by the day/ week/month.

6. Not minding that most of these contractors borrowed money from banks and other sources at exorbitant pay back rates and are now deep in debt to their necks.

7. Case in point Nigerian Customs, all their contractors have not been paid, except those who are relatives and friends of the CG.

This is nothing than that military rule style mentality which has no place in civil rule.

8. CG is NOT a businessman, does not have a clue what the average business owner goes through, he is a carrier soldier. A man who had always drawn a paycheck all his life, never had a successful business of his own. All he does is bark orders and throw his weight around and no one for fear of been sacked dare say a word to him. Ask around in the Customs headquarters in Abuja, no one comes to him with advice not even the DCG”s whose duty that is.

9. Behind every one of this contractors are between 50 to 100 family members who rely on that payment one way or another for one thing or the other, school fees for kids, medicines for sick family members, repayments of loans taken, putting food on the table etc..

10. If this is all about crime fighting, a Presidential Committee was set up and has gone round all the sites, they have returned with a detailed report on what projects were finished, those with issues and those that needed to be cancelled. That was over a year ago and this CG would rather return money to the national treasury rather than pay the poor contractors whose only crime is trusting that if they do their work their employers will do right by them and pay them very timely. That report is sitting on the CG Ali’s desk right now and so are all the payments files that are all on the floor in his office.

11. Before returning money to the treasury, he was said to have talked about not paying the full contract amounts owed contractors for one reason or the other best known to him. Does it make sense that the CG have this money in a bank account, the bank is making money from that deposit. Then the same bank is making money from charging these contractors all those unbearable rates for the loans they got to do this jobs?

12. NCS is a revenue generating parastatal of the FGN, as a matter of fact one of the top three at that, what is wrong with it paying people/Nigerians it owes? Nigerians get their goods sized and confiscated if they owe the Customs and not pay, why should they Customs owe people and just refuse to pay? But continue to enjoy all the amenities that were done for the service?

13. Truth is these completed facilities are been used, as we speak 99% of this facilities are been enjoyed by staff/ men-women of NCS all over the country.

14. To make matters worst, there is no clear statement to when this payments would be made. We are almost half way into 2017, what possible if any argument with a human face can be made to justify this type of leadership anywhere? For almost two years no payment and no one is even talking about paying the contractors let alone when? Where in the world is such wickedness and disrespect of citizenry allowed to go un-challenged like this? I do not care what any one says this is PURE injustice and it should have no place in our democracy.

15. We are in a civil government, this is NOT military as the CG would like to throw his weight around with no one asking any questions. This is out right wrong, it is abuse of office and frankly a tyrannical government. With most of its ministers and head of parastatals very shallow in management/ business. All they claim to bring with them is the fight against corruption, but that is looking more and more as the charade that it is. When you fight people who steal from government, there should be room and obligation to also pay the hard working law abiding Nigerians who do NOT deserve to be bankrupt and loose all they have worked for in their life for simply doing the right thing.