The Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has come hard on the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) and his leadership style, saying that officers’ morale has dropped and that customs officers have become more corrupt under his watch.
President of ANLCA, Prince Olayiwola Shittu in an exclusive interview with Shipping Position Daily last week said that the customs boss might be working in futility because he has chosen not to relate with licensed customs agents whom he needs to succeed.
The ANLCA president told our correspondent that corruption is increasing in the Customs and that more officers are now resulting to 'self-help', because management has failed to neither take care of them, nor encourage them.
Shittu also raised alarm that there are a number of customs officers who have stayed more than 10 years at the same command, even within the customs headquarters. He said that it is only through strategic partnership with the clearing agents that the Customs CG can achieve success in sanitizing the customs.
Shittu said that several efforts to hold meetings with the customs boss have constantly been rebuffed.
According to him, previous Customs boss usually hold regular meetings with stakeholders, and usually oblige requests by the operators for meetings, but, the case is no longer the same.
"Anybody who is the head of an organisation or any government parastatal who knows that his actions are going to impact on certain people who are stakeholders and refuses to engage them would be working in futility"
"All of us are stakeholders; let's ask ourselves, is the ports operating now better than before? The changes are obvious, the 'self-help' that officers are doing for themselves are very obvious and we all know that corruption has gone higher"
"From our own standpoint, Customs officers morale is currently at its lowest since I have been doing this job, and when morale is at its lowest, self-help comes to the fore, it's not enough to say the officers are being paid, people will succumb to temptation when they want to do self-help"
"I have not heard since this CGC came that letters of commendation were written to any officer who have foiled harmful imports or who have in one way or the other recovered revenue, it used to be a show in those days"
"But what we know as agents is that solder-go-solder-come, but barracks would remain. Any of the policies that impact on our survival, we would react appropriately but legally", he stated.
Prince Shittu called on the customs boss to take a holistic view at the nation's cargo clearance system with a view to carrying out a total overhaul.
He noted that currently, there are so many people involved in cargo clearance at the port that should be an inhibition to unscrupulous persons, but the reverse is the case.
Citing the case of the container bearing 661 rifles which exited Apapa port recently, Shittu argued that everyone involved in the process of cargo examination and clearance at the Apapa port is culpable, if not, the container would not just be found at Mile 2 area after already escaping the port.
He argued that: "It also shows that some cargoes must have been getting out of the port without anyone knowing, the exposure of this one has made it necessary to check our cargo clearance process"
"But customs cannot do it alone, they have to get us (ANLCA) involved, and this is why we have been clamouring for a meeting with management of customs to see how to stop fraudulent activities at the port, but the present management believe they know it all".
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