The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has once again mocked a sister association; National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), saying that members of the association have no rights to protest access cards at PTML Terminal because its members do not have practicing licenses.
PTML Chapter Chairman of ANLCA, Elder Oluwole Obey who made the allegation was reacting to a call by the founder of NAGAFF, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam last week that PTML was frustrating and violating the Federal Government’s ease of doing business directive, especially as it concerns access into the ports.
Aniebonam had argued that access into the port for a freight forwarder is based on the identity card issued by the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) to its members and certified by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) as the custodian of the port.
But Obey in his reaction, told Shipping Position Daily that there are no such challenges at the PTML Terminal. He said that it is the touts at PTML port that were giving ANLCA members a bad name and challenging the terminal operators, according to him; most of them have nothing to do inside the port.
“We don’t have any problem with access cards, if anybody is complaining about access card, if anybody is complaining about access card at PTML Terminal, then such a person is not an agent, as a corporate licensed customs agent, what is required from you is your form C30 and your license to give you the access card”
“Those boys that are complaining, truly they are not an agent”
“NAGAFF members are not clearing agents, let us be sincere with ourselves and stop comparing association of licensed customs agents with NAGAFF, they are freight forwarders, they don’t operate licenses, anybody that operate a practicing licenses can never be in NAGAFF, anyone with license must be under ANLCA”, he said.
The ANLCA chairman also argued that NAGAFF members have never had any meeting with Grimaldi Shipping; owners of PTML Terminal over the access card debacle; neither had their members at PTML had meetings with ANLCA and PTML at a meeting where the challenges were being discussed.
Continuing, he said “formerly we don’t have a name, we are just bringing back our name, people used to call us touts, this is because some people will just sit down on a tree, collect money from an importer and run away, at the end of the day the importer will run to association to say an agent has defrauded him. But things are normalizing gradually.
“When issues happen at the port, they don’t go to NAGAFF, they only come to ANLCA”, he said.
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