We wouldn’t have dignified the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) with our response to the Press Release which it issued last week, in which it accused our organisation of practising ‘yellow journalism’.
The association was reacting to the story that was published in the Monday August 22, 2016 edition of Shipping Position Daily, with the headline: “Return To ANLCA, Customs CG Tells NAGAFF, AREFFN, Others”. In the press release, it pointedly accused our organisation of attributing what the CG of Customs did not say to him.
Could we have fabricated this statement by the Customs boss?
The Customs CG, after the participating in the stakeholders’ engagement on the review of the Customs and Excise Management Act, was cornered by the media to throw more light on his comments about Customs relationship. His response: "Somebody will stand up and claim to belong to a group, but when it comes to customs operations, we have to work with the mother association".
"MAN for instance, we have no problem with them, because we know who we are relating with, but when you now take an organisation which has a splinter, if the splinter group makes a case and the mother group makes a case, who do you pay attention to?"
"So, in our operations, this really creates problems for us and this is why I advise that they should try to be intact so that we as customs service could find it easier to collaborate and work with them in the course of our doing business."
"You want us to treat you the way others are treated, but once you create a faction, it becomes difficult for us to work with you, so the cooperation you are looking for will be difficult unless you return to the mother association".
Rather than credibly denying that the CG said what we attributed to him, NAGAFF wasted time quoting sections of the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA) and how it is going to affect coming review. This is mere rhetoric and grandstanding. It is absolutely irrelevant to its argument.
We didn’t quote the CEMA in our story, we quoted the Customs CG verbatim, so who is NAGAFF to accuse our highly-respected platform; Shipping Position Daily of practising ‘yellow journalism’.
Rather than waste its time in writing that useless Press Release, NAGAFF should have done the most noble thing- Go to Court.
There is no where in that reaction that the association could put any evidence to affirm its allegation that we published falsehood.
We weren’t the only media house which spoke with the CG of Customs. Is it our fault if others didn’t ‘hear’ it when he advised that all the associations should go back to what he called ‘mother association’? Is it our fault that we heard what others didn’t hear, or we took note of what others didn’t understand as important or chose to ignore?
We recall that NAGAFF and its leadership did this with us before and recall that when we were forced to provide evidences, it offered an apology. The association ought to know by now that, at Shipping Position Daily, we are thoroughbred professionals and we keep our proofs.
As much as we accord NAGAFF its due respect as a stakeholder, we abhor this penchant for mindless propaganda and blackmail.
Finally, we thank our colleagues who, although received the nauseating press release, chose to ignore it. We are sure that your decision wasn’t just based on camaraderie, but on the several holes that were visible in the statement and your deep knowledge of NAGAFF and its antecedents.
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