How To Bid, Win Nigeria Customs’ E-Auction Vehicles

For the past few months, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), has started auctioning overtime and abandoned containers with their cargoes as well as vehicles at the nation’s seaports.
The cargoes have stayed for at least two years in the seaports and have been forfeited to the federal government through a court of competent jurisdiction.
Also, there have been fake auction websites created to swindle unsuspecting members of the public by fraudsters masquerading as Customs officers on the internet.
However, in this report, BUSINESSINSIDERNG chronicles easy steps of accessing E-Auction as well as the official and genuine website for Customs E-Auction.
The steps go this:
1. Ensure you have a valid Tax Identification Number ( TIN) from Federal Inland Revenue Service ( FIRS).
2. Ensure you have an active email.
3. Ensure that the TIN is validated on Tax Pro Max.
5. You pay a non- refundable administrative fee of N1000 via the platform.
6. For every bid you make is N1000 and to ensure fairness, we have done it in such a way that you are only entitled to two items for each window, unlimited bids for two items.
7. We open on Mondays for prospective registered bidders to view what we have on the portals.
8. Bidding starts every Tuesday, starting from 12noon till 6pm.
9. And once it’s 6pm the person with the highest bids will receive an email. The email will link him to a link which he will download his winning certificate.
10. Once you download your winning Certificate, the winning certificate has your name, your company name, address, phone number, TIN number which you will now take to the Command where the Cargo is domicile and you pick up your cargo after payment of the winning bid.
11.You know these cargoes have been managed over the years because some of them dates  back to seven to eight years in the port. Our stakeholders particularly the terminal operators, have managed them, so you pay 25 percent of the winning bid to terminal operators, another 25 percent to shipping companies.
12. You also pay a 7.5 percent VAT on all the winning bids.
Lastly, to ensure that there is transparency and fairness, Customs Officers and their families are not allowed to participate.
Culled from an interview with the Controller Special Duties, Customs Headquarters, Abuja, Comptroller Babatunde Olomu, in the February, 2024 Edition of NCS  Official Monthly Newsletter

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