In this interview with Assistant Editor; Oluyinka Onigbinde, the immediate past Acting National President of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Dr Kayode Farinto breaks his silence several months after the hotly-contested elections into the national executive committee of his association. He also speaks on other industry issues.
How will you describe the recently launched National Single Window and what does it portend for the industry?
Well, the idea behind the saying National Single Window is very good. We all know this and we will be clamoring for it. It’s just that this government is just coming up. With the look at the issue of import and export, this will address a lot of issues in the industry. So, it is a very good development and a welcomed idea. The only snag is that professional freight forwarders are not included in that committee. So that’s why I call it a snag and we have made our presentation known to the high authorities. I want to believe it is an oversight because you can’t actually design a national single window without putting in freight forwarders. Particularly, these are the experts and if you design anything like this, the freight forwarders will tell you how this thing can work, how it can be, so that it cannot be compromised or have any shortcomings in the national single window. So, I don’t want us to over-flog it. Let us look at it as a big omission from the government which I believe will be addressed very soon.
Do you think the snag is as a result of CRFFN’s incompetency?
Hmm, that word is too heavy. There is no lack of competence. It is a result of the situation of the Governing Council not being in place. The governing board is supposed to drive ideologies for the council and make representations to the government. Had it been there is a governing board in place this would not be happening. There was a governing board, our tenure was not expired, it was actually dissolved. So, these are the things that are actually affecting good representation on behalf of CRFFN. I don’t want to use too heavy language. So, it as a result of the fact that there is no governing board in place. And this is why the Honourable Minister of Marine and Blue economy should start looking towards that direction. We have a governing board in place whose tenure has not expired. Why don’t you allow them to complete their tenure? Then you will conduct another election for another governing board so that we can move forward. If you look at CRFFN in the last few months, we’ve had serious challenges as a result of the fact that we have a governing board that is not in place.
So, the tenure of the governing council of CRFFN that was dissolved didn’t expire at all?
At all. When I was saying that CRFFN has been hijacked by the government, we have more than 30 members and the government is appointing 17. So ordinarily what would have happened when this new government came on board was to dissolve those appointees, bring in new appointees to work with the elected. I bought a form for N500,000. We campaigned and we were elected for a period of two years. We have not even completed one year when the government came on board. There was supposed to be an interpretation from the Attorney General’s office. I don’t know whether all these things were done. And that’s why you see a lot of people rushing to court. I don’t believe court can solve this issue. The new government may not know. So, make the government to know and the new Minister. Why don’t you appoint the new 17 appointee and then work with the elected? And all these things will be a part of the process.
Let’s look at the recent drop in forex vis-a-vis how it has affected importation. We’ve had calls from several quarters calling that the government should give a fixed price for custom exchange. How would you react to all of this?
It is expected. I predicted it. I said when it gets to a stage; Naira will go to N1,500 per dollar. What I never saw was that it was going to reach N1,900 per dollar. And after a while, it started declining and that is exactly what is happening. I also recommended that we should have a fixed exchange rate for import purposes. That would have assisted us. But unfortunately, we have a CBN governor who believes he wants to bring in his ideology, and who believes that advice may not work for us. But whether anybody likes it or not, the dollar is continuing to decline now. Are you now going to be changing the exchange rate on a daily basis? It’s not too good for our industry. And that is killing the industry because there is no predictability. I want to go to China now and bring in 10 containers and we all know that China takes minimum of 60 days. Before the arrival of my vessels, perhaps the dollar will have jumped up or it will have come down. But if we have a fixed, predictive dollar rate, that I know that in the next two quarters, this is going to be the exchange rate. Then you will see the industry thriving. That is what the policy formulators are lacking to be able to project into the future and look at how to solve that problem. If they had implemented that fixing of dollar exchange rate for Custom or for maybe N1,000 per dollar at that time, it will be better. We are in the second quarter now, they will not be reviewing it. But that is not the case and the dollar is continuing to slide because of the fact that government is putting a lot of things to strengthen Naira.
Recently, the CEO of Shippers’ Council proposed a one per cent freight stabilization fund. Some stakeholders, including the Lagos Shippers Association kicked against this; that the Federal Government should be ready to fund the Shippers Council and not being an autonomous agency. What is your take on this?
Ideally, there are a lot of things that are wrong with the Shippers’ Council. What the government would have done a long time is to fix these. We have laws that are making the Shippers’ Council a toothless bull dog. The Shippers’ Council can only bark but it cannot bite, that has been a very great challenge. So, when I saw the issue of stabilization fund, I laughed because I know that it will not scale through. The Shippers’ Council now is putting a lot of things before the public domain and they are not looking at the feedback mechanism. Ideally, the government is supposed to still be funding the Shippers Council for her to stabilize before they now start talking about where to generate money from. The issue of stabilization fund that you are looking at is a thing that everybody should sit on the round table and look at it. We have suggested for a long time that the freight charges that NIMASA has taken 3%. Where is that fund going to? These are the funds that ordinarily can be channelled to finance the Shippers’ Council. What this government is trying to do is to see how to block unnecessary spending. And what is the Shippers Council’s role? Its role is to protect Nigerian Shippers. Have they been doing that? The answer is No.
So, if I want to score this Shipper’s Council in the last few months, I will say they have failed. In all ramifications, the Shippers Council has failed. They have not even done anything and I don’t even know whether the Shippers Council still exists, except when you see them and you see their vehicles. This is because shippers are not being protected. You can only say the Shippers Council is in place when the shippers are protected. Okay, the issue of the operations of dollars. What is Shippers Council’s doing to protect Nigerian Shippers?
Due to this alleged inefficiency of the Shippers’ Council, some experts have been saying that the Orosanye’s report may affect the Council.
No, it’s not possible. You see, this is Orosanye’s report and I have been studying it in the last four months; it’s a document that is good, but it’s belated and obsolete. It needs to be reviewed. It’s not something that this government can implement easily. This is an Orosanye report. I have it here. I can open everything for you to read, customs, recommendations, Shippers Council recommendations and all that. We have gone beyond that. Immediately after this government came on board, they created a Blue Economy ministry. So how do you juxtapose that with the implementation of Orosanye’s report? Orosanye’s report should be given to some experts to review it before implementation because if you implement it the way it is here, there will be a lot of snags; even for the government itself. The government that has created a Blue economy moving forward, going backward again now to implement Orosanye’s report will not help. So, we are supposed to leave Orosanye’s report in the cooler, pick up a committee and let them review it in line with what is happening now in our industry.
In the few months since that the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy was created; how will you rate the ministry?
You can’t rate the ministry until it stabilizes. It’s a ministry that does not even have departments. Most of the departments under the Ministry of Blue Economy are still answerable to the Ministry of Transportation; there has not been delineation; there has not been explicit demarcation. Not that you are answerable to the Ministry of Blue Economy today and tomorrow the Ministry of Transportation. So, this has not been done. I expected that the Honourable Minister of Transportation and the Honourable Minister of Blue Economy needs to sit together, set up a committee and delineate boundary areas, stating what belongs to you and what belongs to us. It has not been done. The Government with a very wise thinking has created a ministry for us. It is now left for implementation and that is why we say we actually recommended the implementation and the creation of this ministry. When it comes to the implementation, we were left out. So, how do we sail through? It’s unfortunate and the man who is saddled with that responsibility is an old man. He has his limitations. He is an old man of 80 years. You need good heads who are technically endowed in the Ministry of Transportation and Marine economy. They should sit together and bring out the blueprint for us on blue economy and the delineation of ministry of transportation and the various departments. If that has been done, by now we should be talking of moving forward.
Let’s take a look at the Nigeria Customs Service. How will you assess the performance of the Service so far?
Like I said when Mr Wale Adeniyi was appointed, I said we are just having a core customs officer as the CG of Customs and you will agree with me that he has been ruling out a lot of policy issues. And to his credit, just last week they said they have met their first quarter targets. So, it shows that they are performing despite the fact that we have a very bad economy and despite the fact that the volume of import has dropped by about 65%. He deserved some accolades.
What about trade facilitation?
The issue of trade facilitation; these are two things that cannot be put in the front burner. The government cannot be talking about revenue target and also be talking about trade facilitation. They are two things. It’s either you give the masses trade facilitation and jettison revenue target or you take your target and jettison trade facilitation. But in view of what is happening throughout the whole world.
There is no sane government that will be talking about trade facilitation now, but to generate money. Don’t forget that our population continues to increase on daily basis and the government has a lot of responsibility to meet. This government inherited a zero economy. So, they are just coming up now with a lot of ideas on how to generate revenue. So, I give it to them; honestly, I give it to them. Despite the fact that we have a serious drop in our importation, they are still meeting up with their targets. So, it shows that they are blocking loop holes and going extra mile to generate revenue. So, I don’t want to talk about trade facilitation for now. We are putting it in the refrigerator until everything normalizes.
It’s been about 224 days since the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) elected new executives into positions and up to now, elections into the chapters and board have not taken place. As a former president of the Association and an elder statesman, how will you react to this?
Well, let me be factual. There is nothing anybody can do to me. I have seen it all. I said I am on sabbatical leave when it comes to ANLCA issue. ANLCA has not been faring well. It’s very unfortunate. But don’t forget, this was not our plan and this was not even our agreement with the Customs Consultative Council (CCC). The CCC, I remember, said we must conduct election of the board one month immediately after NECOM election. An election has been conducted, and it is not as if somebody like me went to court. I never went to court. But up till now, this NECOM has not found its feet. So, something is wrong with that. It’s a problem.
We commend you particularly for letting peace reign as at that time. But we also heard that the election was like a ‘buy-out’. Are you aware of this, and you decided to let go?
I got to know of it on the day of the election, and I heard everything that transpired, even to the extent of the money that was being distributed which was about $50,000. But I am somebody that is very optimistic. I don’t believe in giving excuses. In an election and in every contest, one person must win, that means I have not prepared well. Maybe some other day, if at all, that day will come, if at all somebody like me will contest, it is telling me that go and prepare well. A lot of things happened in that election vis-a-vis internal politics that I don’t want to talk about. It has come and has gone. But the most important thing is that let the various freight forwarders feel the impact of this NECOM, which is not there yet. We don’t have advocacy anymore. Nobody is advocating for us anymore; advocacy is zero. Nobody is following government back-to-back again, is it not possible again. So, the question is that where are your electoral promises if you have anyone at all? Where are your blueprints if you have anyone at all? My father used to tell me that if a woman has not tasted the house of the second husband, she will not know that the first man was better.
