Details published on the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS)’s website contravene the National Information Technology Development Agency’s (NITDA) standard guidelines for government websites.

On Friday, FIJ browsed the NCS website for contact information for the service’s four zones but found phone numbers that network providers described as non-existent.

Two phone numbers, 01-4705576 and 5821496, were listed for the NCS zone A in Lagos, 062-249423 for zone B in Kaduna, 084-2316691 for zone C in Rivers and 077-542894 for zone D in Bauchi.

These zones also had [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] email addresses, respectively.

READ ALSO: VIDEO: IBD Dende Threatens to Kill Customs Officer for Seizing His Smuggled Goods

FIJ called the phone numbers, but none of them would connect. FIJ then sent an email to all four listed email addresses, but the mail delivery system returned the email saying, “Your message wasn’t delivered to (email address) because the address couldn’t be found, or is unable to receive mail.“

According to Section 3 of the NITDA guidelines, the home page of a government website must contain “a link to a contact page that includes information which shall include a functional phone number and a monitored email address on how the Government Institutions can be reached and a form which has the following fields: Name, Address, Message and Monitored email address of the institution or business unit responsible for public relations.”

When FIJ called the NCS headquarters in Abuja and relayed our findings, a responder on the other side of the call said, “I don’t know why it is like that. Maybe it is network; give it time.”

FIJ told her the newspaper tried calling the numbers on multiple occasions and also sent emails that were never delivered, but she had no answers.

The newspaper sent an email to the NCS’ public relations office, but as of press time, the office had not responded.