APMT Officials Ask Agents to Pay Bribe Into Their Accounts before Rendering Services
…….SHITTU, ANLCA NATIONAL PRESIDENT
It wasn’t the first time that license customs agents would come together and agree to withdraw their services, but it was the first time since he was elected as national president of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA). Prince Olayiwola Shittu; is already a media –friendly person, who didn’t need any prior invitation to pour out his mind on any issue. He came into the press centre in Apapa in company with his counterpart at the national Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Mr Eugene Nweke to brief the media on the now-suspended withdrawal of services in protest against alleged unacceptable practices at the Lagos-based APM Terminal. The minister of transport, Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman has since set up a Task Force to look into the allegations.
How has it been with you in office as national president of ANLCA in the last 30 days?
Let me first of all apologize on behalf of ANLCA that the then- association’s electoral commission that was handling the election did not make adequate arrangements to have enough representation of your members at that election, but then you also know that the people in authority then were not us. I will like to personally thank you for all your efforts; especially, before the election. I read a lot of stories, not because a lot of people gave me endorsement even from here but at least you tried to balance the stories and those who probably don’t like my face, but they like the association and they want it to succeed, I was able to call them up one and give them our own side of the story. So the joker you were all waiting for that was being banded all around then was that I must emerge as president and that is what really happened. I was not the one that elected the officials; the officials you are seeing here were elected just like me by the will of the people. For the past 33 days, I will rather say that I am particularly blessed by the enthusiasm and zeal with which all elected members have been carrying on and that is why in a very shot time, we have been able to achieve much more than was expected of us. We now have a very effective secretariat, right now we are in the process of recruitment of workers that will man the secretariat and our secretariat has internet facilities, in fact you need to go there and see whether we are ready for work or not. The idea is that for long ANLCA has been sleeping and now we have woken up with anger; when a well- fed man has been sleeping and suddenly wakes up with anger, definitely he has something in mind which he wants to achieve. We should have called this a thank you visit, just to shake your hands and walk away, but we came in at a time when there are a lot of troubles in the port, a lot of people celebrate 100 days in office, but what we do is that one week in office, we set target for ourselves, two weeks in office, one month and so on because the problem we met on ground is very unbearable.
Our Partnership with Other Associations
Let me also quickly say that in our visit here today, we invited the leadership of NAGAFF to join us here because the new system of ANLCA is to carry everybody along, gone are the days of association of pettiness, quarrels, when a lot of our members are languishing and leaders are fighting themselves about relevance, we believe that relevance is something that will show itself depending on how much you are able to do your work. We have several problems, but I will just tick off one or two that you need to hear.
Our Problems with Shipping Companies
We have problems with shipping companies, but by the grace of God, the chairman of the Tin Can chapter Mr Kayode Farinto who also doubles as our chairman on shipping company operations, (he had to combine the two because there is an inherent ability in him to get things done, he has been doing a lone battle before now, I use to read about him in the papers but now we want to channel those energy by working with him to make sure that most of the problems we are having with the shipping companies can be resolved) has started well, he has met with Maersk Line and out of six immediate demands, they have been able to accede to five, about the other ones we have set up our legal team and they are working with them, what we are trying to do now is that we want to collaborate and dialogue, use diplomacy and also try as much as possible to reach people. When that fails, then we will reveal our plan B, that is why, everywhere, we have our plans A, B, C, D, so we are still at the level of plan A now. It will interest you that a company like SDV will issue an invoice as of today and charge monies under different headings and you will be asking yourself whether we are in the same country, the charges you see there are fast track, refund processing charge; which is the money they charge you just for you to take your money back which you have deposited for a container, document release charge; per bill of laden, cleaning maintenance, week end service, after you have paid as much as N25,250 and N36,000 for a 20 and 40 foot container respectively, and they want us to just keep quiet and let everything go. The bottom line is that a few are eating this industry raw, first and foremost let me re-echo what the Customs Comptroller General said when we visited him last week, he said we should be thinking first of all as Nigerians before we thinking about what is our benefits, this country belongs to all of us, this foreigners have come here to come and work and they are doing what they cannot do even in their own countries, it is a challenge to all of us and it is an issue that we are going to tackle. I like to inform you that we have appointed a national legal adviser, presently he has gone to put together some documents relating to some litigation we have, one of the litigations is to the shipping companies; we have documents to show that they will end up paying us reparation because the illegality perpetrated in this country is so enormous that apart from NNPC, the next most corrupt area is the maritime industry and the people doing it are the privileged people being protected by the powers that be.
Our Problems with the Customs
Within the same one month of our assuming office, we have visited the CG, there was this problem we had about enforcement of a tariff concerning vehicles, fortunately we were able to step in and customs has taken a reverse, looked into our agitations and acceded to our demands and that is why you see that there is relative peace on the issue of vehicles. Our position on imported vehicles is very simple, if a man goes abroad and brings in a 2009 or 2008 or 2007 jeep, the government tariff is there and by the time you apply it you will be paying in excess of one million, but a situation whereby an importer wants you to go and pay N150, 000 to N200, 000 is not acceptable to us. You remember that there was a crisis before now when people paid N150,000 for some brand new cars, the importer is the beneficiary of that short- payment because he will never give the agent money to say bring the vehicle and I will give you complete money. In those days it was possible when customs officers collects your money across the counter, if you collude with them the real receipt writes one amount while the duplicate reads something else, but now, you must retire the document to the importer, so the duty you have paid will reflect, so must these importers whom the finance minister have just identified as the major problem to revenue generation use us and the customs and at the end of the day still call us bad names? So we are doing what they call reorientation for our members, we are licensed by the federal government to work with customs and generate revenue, our primary duty is to assist the government in collecting its revenue, in fact we are supposed to be so technically sound and be superior to the customs officers. I will like to tell you that the custom brokers abroad make policies for government, but here we wait for policies to be enforced on us, but now we are taking a new turn because we believe that the country belong to all of us and that is when our demand for us to get commission like CTN will come in. So it is only when we have tried as much as possible to partner with government that we can be able to sit back and demand what is right and due for us.
So far we are still collaborating with customs, when we had a crisis at the zonal level they set up a technical committee between license customs agents and customs; it has never happened before but because of the approach of collaboration that we are having, if we are able to continue with that we should be able to achieve more because at the end of the day the era of having customs as enemy or suspecting agents as enemies is being downplayed now through the collaboration with the CG to the point that he has even asked us to arrange a meeting where all our officials with the CAC’s will sit down together, point hands at each other and find solution to the perennial problems that we are having; that’s collaboration and sometimes you achieve more with diplomacy than when you want to be very aggressive, but that should not be seen as a sign of weakness because we know what we can do.
Our Problems with Terminal Operators
One of our major problems is the terminals, I don’t know if you have been to APM Terminals in recent times, we have lost confidence in the management of APMT and by inference we have lost confidence in those who appointed them as concessionaires because all they have come to do in this office is to milk us, rubbish us, treat us like animals and behave as if they are above the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria , we have an axe to grind with APMT, we have written letters to the minister of transport, the minister of finance; the CG of Customs is aware and the managing director of NPA is aware, we have given them a notice and come 26th of this month which is next Wednesday, we are withdrawing our services totally from APMT and if within the week there is no response we shall withdraw totally from the federation all over the port to drive home the point that APMT is not only deceitful but also fraudulent and NPA lack the capacity because they call them technical regulator, but I don’t see what they are regulating, we are aware and we are accusing them of collaboration because it is only when you collaborate and get benefits that you see something going wrong and you close your eyes.
I like to inform you that the crane that was launched with fanfare, that you witnessed and which our late president Yar Adua (may his soul rest in peace) came to commission was one of the greatest scam you can think about because that crane is 20 years old but it was presented as brand new, I am leaving it for you as journalists to go and carry out your investigations, a government agency have done their own investigation and they have had the same conclusion that all these old equipment are repainted and brought to us for the value of new ones and that is why the same APMT today can not even handle their own cargo efficiently.
You will ask why we are not talking to them when we are talking about dialogue. As at the last time our chapter chairmen have had not less than 45 meetings with APMT, they wrote letters to us that they want to have a meeting with us on 21st or 22nd, but we ignored them because we have exhausted dialogue and that is why we want to show what we can afford to. And I want to tell you that the withdrawal of service is going to be total because both the Council of Managing Directors and NAGAFF are behind us. Once we leave here now, we are furthering our meetings and moving on.
The bottom line is not because we love to withdraw our services, because it’s painful and one of our demands is that why must we pay for services not rendered? When we ask them to position containers for us, it takes them three weeks, two weeks to book, after booking, you will come and hear maybe its your turn or not and it has degenerated to a level where a scam now exist among their officials who see the way their management is robbing off on Nigeria and now give you a private account number whereby you will pay money into and then you will come and take booking number, if you don’t do that, for the next two weeks nobody will listen to you, if you want to book for container to be positioned you are given one week to come and find out when you are going to book, when you now book, they can put you for three weeks, why must people bite more than what they can chew, the terminal is too small for the level of import that is going there, there are idle ports and off- dock terminals that are empty. Nigerians like us were encouraged to go and borrow money from the banks to set up bonded warehouses, some of then are running bankrupt and yet they cannot take containers into those terminals, everything must remain inside that APMT for us to be messed up, I think its not acceptable.
We have been talking with NPA officials even while we are planning this, when the minister got our letter, the first thing he did was to direct the Director, maritime services to get in touch with us; that it will be too late to write letters and so they called that they want a meeting in Abuja on Monday, but that will not stop us because what is on ground is not just an issue for us as agents, we are advocates too because this is our country. We have requested the minister to set up an inter ministerial task force to look into how a company like APMT which I am sure is distributing ‘envelopes’ to whoever cares, we are aware that some of your members are on their pay roll, they can launder image, but you can only launder an image as much. I am challenging you to walk to that terminal now and see how the boys working for our companies are being treated like animals, if you enter there they smell, 700 people are chasing for an opportunity to be served and you are paying for the service.
How we will carry out the fight
One thing I can tell you is that the fight is not for me alone, it includes all of you including those who are collecting ‘envelopes’ in order not to expose them, the greatest weapon against the mighty is truth provided we are not doing something to compromise ourselves, trying to target somebody or to witch-hunt. Even the presidency that you are talking about, they are there, but let it be on record that at a time in history, we were able to do that. Don’t forget that the minister said that they are going to carry out an audit of concessionaires, this is an opportunity for it to be properly done, we are not saying that APMT should not work, but we are saying that they should not collect money for services not rendered, is that too much? We are not there to fight, if we say we are not working in that terminal again, will they tie our hands and force us there? Even the elephant says the problem he has is not with the big animals, it is those tiny ones that enter his ears and ass that are his problems. So, as tiny as we are, let us start this journey and we will not look back.
What we have in stock for those that may want to circumvent these plans?
I think that for the first time in history, the leadership of ANLCA is sitting down with the leadership of NAGAFF and that shows you the present situation in which we find ourselves, the rain that fell in my house has fallen in his house and there is no discrimination. Those who molested the chairman of Apapa chapter are our members who are frustrated because we are talking about dialogue and using other means of diplomacy, but they are not ready for all that, they don’t even want us to know that they are carrying out actions until they burn down the place. But that is not something we want to ascribe to ANLCA, the same people have come to apologies for throwing sachet water at him, which is still a modern way, after all the prime minister of Britain was stoned with tomatoes and eggs, all that was to show the frustrations that the people are going through and I am sure that once our members hear that APMT should be boycotted, unless APMT wants to bring their families to come and work for them it will be total. And I can tell you that we have had this discussion with the CG of Customs and as far as they (the Nigeria Customs Service) are concerned, they are frustrated themselves. If they (APMT) are able to meet these conditions, then we now sit back again and start to fine-tune it until they get it right. Let me also add that God is the owner of life and we pray that no harm comes to any of us, no matter what your determination is, if God says they will not succeed they will not, somebody must definitely step out from somewhere. Gani Fawehinmi is gone now, the years he spent on earth is like a twinkle of an eye in the history of the earth itself, but if we sit down and we do nothing, all we have been hearing is that anything in the ports concerning corruption is the agents, how long are we going to be blaming the agents and that is our mission to let the world know that those behind the corruption is not the agent, if somebody gives you an account number for you to go and pay before you can book your container, is that the agents’ fault? And the agent will want to carry his load quickly because as an agent you have a time lag with your importer; if you don’t do well today, that importer will not come to you tomorrow, there is still competition.
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