“CRFFN Governing Council: “We are only trying to do our best, but our best is not enough”
Alhaji Tanko Ibrahim is the National Coordinator of NAGAFF’s 100% Compliance Team. He is also a member of the Governing Council of the CRFFN. In this interview with Oluyinka Onigbinde and Joshua Yousouph, he opens-up on the challenges facing the CRFFN, as well as the CEMA Amendment Bill. He also expresses disappointment in the crises which have brought ANLCA to its knees.
What is your appraisal of the performance of the CRFFN governing Council so far?
By the grace of God, I am a member of the board and I will tell you that we are now six months in our tenure. If I am to rate the performance of the governing Council, I will say that we are only trying to do our best, but our best is not enough. Nothing is happening in the council for now because the Registrar is seriously frustrating the board. He doesn’t want the board to go anywhere. As I am talking to you, we are at a standstill. Since the arrival of the new Minister, we were supposed to have a meeting with him about three weeks ago and the Minister said he was not on seat and for that reason, the meeting should be suspended and every other thing should also be suspended until the Minister is available. This is an election time where politicians are very busy here and there. So the council is being affected in many ways, but the major issue is the Registrar; the Registrar is not a good person to us.
It was alleged that it is the Governing council that is trying to move CRFFN headquarters to Abuja despite having other sister maritime agencies domiciled in Lagos.
Why the Board said the Council should be relocated to Abuja is because when the Registrar submitted his report to us and we went through it, we realised that the spending on transport tickets and accommodation to and fro Abuja is on a very high side. Then we said if that be the case, we should then relocate to Abuja. We have an office in Abuja and the expenses of transport tickets and hotel reservations in Abuja was projected to be very high.
Are there plans now to get a new Registrar?
Yes, whether we like it or not his tenure will soon expire, but the major thing is that whether he is there or not, everything lies in the hands of the minister for now. That is what we have been saying this Council belongs to freight forwarders but the ministry has hijacked it. We are the mercy of the ministry. If not, I don’t see why the Board cannot take a decision unless they wait for the decision of the ministry. We can’t take any decision without the ministry. So we have to wait until the minister takes a decision on this matter. Let’s hear from him and as he gives his reasons.
Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari rejected the CEMA amendment bill owing to some offensive clauses. Do you think the rejection is s welcome idea?
It is a welcome idea. In fact, I am happy with that and I commend President Muhammadu Buhari for doing that because there are a lot of issues in that CEMA that needs to be reviewed. In my observation, I realised that there are two to three places that needs to be reviewed. Even if I haven’t seen anything good in this regime of the APC, I would commend our President for the rejection of the CEMA. This is one decisions of the President that I am very happy with. I need you to go through the amendment CEMA bill and see. If you are a true freight forwarder, you will be happy for that denial of assent to the CEMA bill.
Freight forwarders have been pushing for their representation on the Customs Governing Board. Following the rejection of the amended CEMA bill, do you think this is the right opportunity to get integrated?
Yes, that is what should have been done earlier before now, but we are insisting now and it is working. We are supposed to know everything that is happening on the board of Custom. The CRFFN is pushing for that and there is a bit of approval for that already.
The 100% Compliance team of NAGAFF recorded lots of feats last year, but it seems as if we are not hearing more of it this year. What is really happening?
We dissolved the sectional heads of the compliance team because we want to reconstitute the compliance team. We noticed some of our officers are not representing us well in some of the areas. So nationwide, the heads have been dissolved to reconstitute the team. We are still on it; we have not finished. But the Compliance team and the members are still there but the sectional heads have been dissolved. That is why you have not been hearing about us. But very soon, you will start hearing us about us again.
We know that the CRFFN set up a committee to look into the ANLCA crisis and come up with a resolution. How far has CRFFN gone in resolving these crises?
This issue of ANLCA has been suspended from any operation, that nobody should operate or claim anything under the name of the association until the resolution of the CRFFN. We have written the Police that no secretariat should be open, everywhere should be locked up until the outcome of the council’s intervention. Then why should somebody go and have a meeting in the name of the association if at all they respect the council board. Sometimes we need to respect our leaders even though he is your son. Yes, you are the one that gave birth to him, but you should respect that position. They should have respected the law or order of the leader who said they should suspend any action or activities of the association with the name ANLCA until further notice. But they now went to ‘National’ to have a meeting and thugs came in to cause mayhem. That is why another announcement came in that anyone parading himself as a member of ANLCA should be arrested and be prosecuted. I was formerly a member of ANLCA. In fact, everyone came out from ANLCA. It is a shame for all of us to watch ANLCA crashing. If ANLCA crash, then all of us are crashing. I am not happy. Anyone who tells you that he is happy with the present situation of ANLCA does not even know what he is saying. We are all from ANLCA before forming the National Council of Managing Directors in 1996 when the issue of the blockage of license sprang up. It is the same ANLCA people that came out to form the National Council of Managing Directors when we said they should go back and fight for our license. After all these, other associations like NAGAFF and others started springing up. ANLCA is the mother of all associations and it is not good for us to look at it crashing. That is when we are putting heads together to make sure that there is peace in that place. Those that are enjoying this crisis, I pray they will one day realise what they are doing is wrong and will come back to their normal senses to make peace. All these were influenced by anger; maybe they contested for a position and they failed or maybe they were denied a position. But we pray for ANLCA to come back to her feet.
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