The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has elected members of its new Board of Trustees (BoT) during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) which held at Owerri on Wednesday.
The election which was conducted in a historic electronic system style across all chapters in the country had a total of 1,462 members of the association monitoring, while 678 total votes were cast with 110 accredited voters in all.
The newly-elected board members include the Executive Vice Chairman of SIFAX Group, Dr. Taiwo Afolabi, Chief Kingsley Offor, Elder Abel Ayokunle, Prince Uzor Chukwura, Eniola Igbaruola, Chief Christian Odinaka Igwe, and three others.
The National President of the association; Mr. Tony Nwabunike urged the newly elected board members to have the interest of the association at heart and ensure peace, tranquility and development of the association. Nwabunike also thanked the outgoing BOT members for serving ANLCA to the best of their abilities, pointing out that the election of the board was delayed as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic.
He said: “For the avoidance of doubt, the outgoing board was elected for six years’ tenure at the AGM in Warri on the 13th day of February, 2014. In line with Section 854 of CAMA, the tenure of the registered Trustees is effective from the date the Trustees were appointed or elected and terminates a month before the expiration of the Trustees’ tenure to enable the corporate body plan for succession. Relating this to ANLCA, the six tenure of the BOT expired on 12th January, 2020.
“As a matter of fact, a new BOT would have been in place if not for the lockdown occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic. I want to admonish you my professional colleagues to be careful as we elect new Trustees. Those to be elected should be those with tested integrity that have the interest of the association at heart”, he stated
Speaking earlier, Nwabunike noted that the current National Executive Committee (NECOM) has done well, even stating that the NECOM had successfully navigated ANLCA ship to the path of sustainable stable voyage and has changed the narratives and ensure that ANLCA remained the foremost association in the maritime sector.
He also pointed out that the present NECOM is aware of the operational challenges its members across the nation were facing daily, he however assured that the association is working very hard to address the bottle necks.
“We at NECOM can beat our chest and say that despite numerous challenges, we have done marvelously well.”
“For one, we have gotten assurance from the National Assembly leadership with guarantee of non-interference of the parliament in the clearance of cargo.
“For another, they have extracted commitment on the part of federal government of Nigeria to open the land borders.
“Owing to the need for the Nigerian business community to maximize the benefits of Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and we have received government assurances for consideration to rescind on border closure.
“ANLCA had reminded the federal government that AfCFTA regime which hopes to take effect from January 2021 with Secretariat in Accra Ghana will place Nigerian businesses at disadvantage if the nation’s land borders remained closed to trade.
“The association therefore secured the assurances of the federal government on the need to effect gradual reopening of the closed borders with particular focus on rules of origin to prevent abuses of incentives like the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS).
“Apart from the fact that Nigeria is losing billions every month, of note is over 10,000 direct and indirect jobs that have been lost so far due to this policy which in our view should have been approached and implemented differently”, he said.
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