THE Nigeria Customs Service is now fine-tuning an initiative which could frustrate cars smuggled into the country from securing plate numbers.

The initiative, designed as a ‘mouse catcher’ is being anchored on a single-window plan, which would electronically off-load the particulars of every car whose duty has been paid to the Federal Road Safety Corps, thereby ensuring that anyone wanting to register any strange vehicles, whose data could not be found within the FRSC data bank would either be forced to first pay government the desired duty or denied registration.

“We want to make it extremely difficult for any vehicles that come into the country illegally to be registered” an officer, Superintendent Fateh A. Fateh, told the Nigerian Tribune at Owerri last week, stressing that very shortly, the idea of ‘car flying’, a euphemism for car smuggling would become un-attractive.

The officer who was also a guest speaker at a week-long Customs/ media relations seminar said while the government might for now not be able to completely prevent the smuggling of such dangerous items like arms and ammunition, the decision to foreclose car smuggling was important as an economic measure, as it would significantly swell revenue accruable to government.

Speaking in the same vein, a participant at the seminar, who also was an officer, said the idea ,though an economic intent meant to concretely boost the reliability of statistics being annually churned out by government, if it however succeeds, especially with plate numbers, was bound to stretch elsewhere.

“I agree the original idea may be for revenue boosts; the authorities are also already studying its security advantages” he disclosed, speaking under anonymity.

 Industry watchers agree that with the increasing level of inter-agency understanding and cooperation, the idea could succeed.