The Tin Can Island Chapter of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has said that the Tin Can Island Port which was hitherto believed to be the most notorious port in Nigeria has turned a new leaf and that such activities of notoriety have been eliminated.
Chairman of the chapter, Prince Segun Oduntan made the statement in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week as he celebrated one year anniversary of his executives.
Oduntan noted that all seaports across the world have their peculiarities and challenges and that Tin Can Port is not an exemption. According to him, the era of negative vices such as forging of customs valuation papers and the practices of the notorious ‘canteen boys’ and ‘machine outside’ are all gone for good at Tin Can port.
On the recent importation of 440 cartons of deadly riffles through the port, he described this as a one-off occurrence which has been successfully quelled by the Area Controller of Customs at Tin Can, Bashar Yussuf.
He noted that less than one year, he has been able to implement some of the electoral promises he made to the Tin Can chapter members. He told our correspondent that the executives have secured an operations bus for the chapter and that many of the chapter members now enjoy a robust health insurance scheme introduced by his executives.
“I have been fair to my members, I have been a source of help and I have been able to give helping hands within the short period that we came in, and you can see the peace and tranquillity in the chapter”
“When we came in, we injected life into the secretariat, we have given the members an insurance policy which is one year today, I am happy that people who have taken advantage of the scheme now have their insurance certificates. We also have a bus that we put in place and it is running. The cordial relationship that we said we would maintain with the customs where there would be less challenges is also there, these are part of our manifestos”, he noted.
Oduntan however sent a note of warning to unscrupulous clearing agents, saying that his administration would not support or defend any clearing agent that fails to do the right thing.
He said that in the past one year, people with genuine complaints have come forward and the executives have been able to tackle these problems.
“I don’t know which chairman who has visited the Controller of Tin Can Port frequently like I do, there are coordinators in every terminal that our people should talk to, apart from these, all my executives are in charge of one terminal or the order, if they cannot handle the challenge they get back to me and I sort it out with the customs.”
“Association is not there to confront government on fraud, we are here to assist the government and let the revenue accrue, we would not support fraud, we would not work with people doing machine outside. If you have operational challenges with the shipping companies they are not paying your demurrage, deposit or delaying your cargo, we would move in”, he assured.
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