He gave the directive at a meeting of senior officers of the service and leaders of licenced customs agents to resolve the two-week crisis at the cargo shed of the airport.
He said the crisis was caused by non-compliance with customs clearance procedure by the agents.
The agents boycotted the shed due to the alleged tough actions of the Federal Operations Unit (F.O.U.) of the service over non-compliance.
Gbemudu said that the service would not compromise on duty collection on cargoes coming out of the cargo shed.
``Duty must be paid on every airway bill,’’ he said, adding that the service had discovered that many airway bills could not be accounted for.
The Customs boss, however, said the service would take cognizance of the fact that diplomatic cargoes were duty-free all over the world.
He said the cargo shed was not closed as goods had been leaving the shed in the past weeks ``and even this morning’’.
Dan Ugo, the Comptroller, F.O. Unit, said the unit moved into the airport to ensure compliance with cargo clearance procedure and payment of duties.
Olayiwola Shittu, the President of Association of Nigerian Licenced Customs Agents, said the association had discovered that the situation at the cargo shed was due to non-compliance with customs procedure.
He assured that the agents would henceforth comply with the procedure, saying that “our people want to go back to work, but not going back to work under this siege”.
Eugene Nweke, President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, said that freight forwarders and clearing agents had been making consultation on the procedure.
He assured that the service would see reasonable changes before the end of the year.
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