Webb Fontaine $250million payment under investigation over incessant Customs Server breakdown

Webb Fontaine $250million payment under investigation over incessant Customs Server breakdown

… FG must demand compensation from Webb Fontaine – APFFLON insists

The news reaching our platform revealed that the $250million earnings of Webb Fontaine, the I.T Service provider for Nigeria Customs Service, from Nigerian Government is under investigation by Senate Committee on Customs over recurring server breakdown.

As such, the National Assembly has directed the Federal Ministry of Finance, as well as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to stop payment of outstanding money to Webb Fontaine, until after investigation.

In the same vein, National President, African Association of Professional Freight Forwarders and Logistics of Nigeria (APFFLON), Otunba Frank Ogunojemite is calling on Nigerian Government to demand compensation from Webb Fontaine over poor services, which made government, importers and freight forwarders to lose revenue.

Speaking further, APFFLON President expressed strong displeasure over what he described as poor services rendered by the I.T company to the Federal Government through Customs for years.

He applauded the Senate Committee for its bold step in investigating the services of Webb Fontaine since the contract started in 2006.

According to him :  “Importers and freight forwarders had incurred huge revenue losses due to recurring server breakdown caused by poor services of  Webb Fontaine.

” In reality, we can’t quantify the monetary losses incurred by freight agents following poor services of Webb Fontaine over the years
because of server downtime leading to more charges for storage at the terminals. The Federal Government also suffered revenue losses, because downtime means payments can’t be made for hours, sometimes for days.”

He went on :  “To me, this is a deliberate action by Webb Fontaine to sabotage Nigeria’s economy because the same company runs the same system efficiently in other places”.

He lamented:  “Network failure, also known as downtime that often lasts for over 4 days had been a regular issue, leaving Freight agents with  backlog of demurrage and trapping thousands of containers in the process.

“So, at such times, freight agents are totally helpless because even banks are not able to transmit information on import duties paid to the government”.

…Additional details from News Diet