‘Customs e-auction disempowering Nigerians’

The National Secretary of Nigeria Association of Auctioneers, Isibor Abhulimen has said that the recently launched e-auction by the Nigerian Customs Service has led to job losses amongst its members. He accused the customs of pre –arranging beneficiaries of the e-auction system, leading to self-enrichment devoid of transparency. He told Daily Trust on phone  that […]

The National Secretary of Nigeria Association of Auctioneers, Isibor Abhulimen has said that the recently launched e-auction by the Nigerian Customs Service has led to job losses amongst its members.

He accused the customs of pre –arranging beneficiaries of the e-auction system, leading to self-enrichment devoid of transparency.

He told Daily Trust on phone  that the auctioning  platform provides employment opportunities to a lot of Nigerians in the business value chain.

He, however, said that the e-auction recently introduced by customs is doing the sector more harm than good.

 “You don’t want all the auctioneers here to grow, that’s why you want to take all the jobs, how can you be a civil servant and at the same time want to do the job of professionals, how will you allow the professionals to grow?  In Nigeria, the only reason why people don’t grow is because the people out there want to do the job of professionals. The only way this grows is to allow all traders go into private business and the government is saying there is no job, auctioneer industry is capable of employing a whole lot of people, right now I have more than 14 training staff under me and independently they have people working for them,” he said.

He added that many of them could no longer retain their employees due to “the disempowering nature of the new system.”

“Why take away the jobs of over 100 thousand Nigerians directly that can create over 400 thousand indirect jobs?  One of the core goals of the Nigeria Association of Auctioneers has been job creation, but most of our job creation efforts have met a brick wall set up by the Nigeria Customs Service. Why is the Nigeria Customs Service averse to employing the services of Auctioneers? All over the world the Auction profession is flourishing because most governments have come to rely on auctioneers as vehicles to increased revenue generation,

“Government’s tinkering in business limits the potential yield of any business ventured into, the bureaucracy of government is the number one limiting factor, and this case is not exempt.”