Reps committee summons Customs CG over alleged refusal of senior officers to retire

The House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions has summoned the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Adewale Adeniyi, to appear before it next Tuesday to address concerns over the refusal of some senior officers to retire

Six senior officers, reportedly holding ranks between Comptroller and Assistant Comptroller General, are alleged to have remained in service despite reaching the mandatory retirement age.

The summons follows a petition by an NGO, Obasi-Pherson Help Foundation, which accused the officers of defying retirement regulations.

Committee chairman, Mike Etaba, stated that the Customs CG must clarify the situation and provide Nigerians with the true position of the matter.

He said: “Nigerians deserve to know the truth of the matter and it is only the CG that can clarify the situation. We are elected to serve the people and ensuring that all government agencies function effectively is part of that service. In this era when most of our youths are looking for job, it will be wrong for the older ones who are due for retirement to refuse to go.

“That is not to say we shall take sides, far from it. We treat each case on merit ensuring that justice is given at all times to the deserving.”

Also, the committee threatened to order the arrest of the Director General and Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Identity Management Commission, NIMC if she fails to appear in person to respond to allegations of refusal to pay for state of the art software development project installed and deployed to the commission by a private firm, Truid Limited .

Truid Limited alleged a breach of license agreement by NIMC.

According to E. R. Opara, counsel to Truid Limited, the agreement is premised on an arrangement whereby the Truid Limited funded, developed and deployed tokenization system without any financial obligation from NIMC.

He said Truid was to get returns on her investment through patronage of service providers and the proceeds shared on an agreed ratio. This was to run for an initial period of ten years from 2021 when the software was deployed.

According to the petition, things were going on smoothly until the appointment of the new DG of NIMC who has been trying to truncate the agreement.

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