The Customs service made N49 million from its e-auction site

Public relations officer for the NCS, Joseph Attah, shared the information in a statement on Friday, July 28, 2017, in Abuja.

According to the statement, 6,560 people had access to the e-wallet feature through which they had to pay the N1000 administrative fee the NCS charges on the e-auction site.

This was made possible thanks to the NCS having 19 commercial banks support the e-auction platform.

“Four weeks after the official launch of the NCS e-auction platform, by the Comptroller-General of Customs, retired Col. Hameed Ali, a total number of 254 winners have emerged across the country with over N49 million already generated.

“NCS has already taken steps to deal with the challenges posed by fraudulent bidders who log in to frustrate other genuine bidders by placing bogus and unrealistic figures,” Attah said in the statement, according to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek.

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“In some cases, they send SMS to supposed winners congratulating them. Apart from de-activating the Tax Identification Numbers (TIN) of these elements, the option for second highest bidder to win when the highest winner fails to pay has been jettisoned.

“In such situation, the item reverts to the system for fresh bidding. Winners are informed only through e-mails from the system not by SMS.”

The NCS spokesperson said efforts were being made the Service to combat these criminal attempts to undermine the system.

The Custom Service’s e-auction website did not have such a good start to life as a government agency owned platform with a website failure on July 1, 2017 — the day it was supposed.

Despite that, the NCS still courted controversy by insisting that 49 people had somehow won bids even though the website was not working on the said day.