Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), said yesterday that private jet operators whose aircraft were grounded over alleged non-payment of import duties have begun the process of regularising their duty payments.
Spokesperson of NCS, Maiwada Abdullahi, who confirmed this to Vanguard, said the decision to ground the private jets came after the expiration of the given ultimatum.
Last night, reports emerged that no fewer than 60 private jets flying in the country had been grounded over alleged failure to pay import duty.
The grounding of the aircraft started at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, and other airports on Monday and continued till Tuesday. This came eight months after the NCS threatened to ground over 60 private jets owned by very important persons in the country over unpaid import duty.
While this did not take place, the NCS later announced the extension of the verification exercise for private jet owners by one month, from 14 October 2024, to 14 November 2024, which also didn’t happen. But Abdullahi, in a chat with Vanguard, said the decision to ground the private jets was not arbitrarily reached.
He said: ‘It was not done arbitrarily without proper consultation. We gave them an ultimatum. Those whose private jets have been grounded know what to do. They have started coming to regularise their duty payments’.
