Members of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) have appealed to the Nigeria Customs Service and the National Executive Committee (NECOM) of ANLCA to extend the time for the training of customs brokers on the operations of Direct Traders Input (DTI) Cafes by two months.
Some of the members who spoke with Shipping Position Daily last week lamented that the three days DTI training programme which commenced at the ANLCA National Secretariat recently was inadequate for members to acquire enough knowledge on DTI operations.
Secretary of the Tin Can Island Chapter of the Association; Mr. Ebere Nzeribe described the three days training as just an ordinary 'flash in the pan'.
He argued that members who do not have any fore knowledge of ICT would still find it difficult to operate the DTI.
It would be recalled that the Customs recently shut down operations of commercial DTI operators and directed all customs brokers to come forward and obtain passwords to run the platform by themselves.
DTI Cafe is the first point of call in the clearance process at the port, where importers are expected to ‘capture’ their cargoes and determine the real duty payable to the government.
Speaking, Nzeribe said, "the three days training at ANLCA headquarters is not enough, it has to be extended. I believe that whatever is worth doing is worth doing well"
"We need to have constant training to be acquainted with the process. The training at ANLCA headquarters is just a flash in the pan as far as we are concerned"
"Unless you have ICT knowledge abinitio, you cannot follow up, it should be extended by two months"
"Apart from the training, the acquisition of the equipment for the DTI like the router, the motto and others are of high standard, but too expensive. Customs should look into simplifying the configuration system, we don't need expensive and gigantic equipment and masts" he said.
Also speaking with our correspondent, another member of the association; Mr. Frank Aliakor equally advocated extension of the training by three months.
He lamented that Customs should not have shut down the DTI Cafes spontaneously, saying that the customs agents are not yet ready to take over the process.
"There is supposed to be a quiet transition from the DTI operators to the agents, most agents are yet to be compliant and their offices do not have the required equipment"
"Some of us have had this training before at Apapa CPC and at Ikeja training college, this one is just about knowing the elementary aspect of the capturing, but there are some other knowledge that need to be acquired like classification of goods, the tariff, export and so on".
"They should extend the training by two months so that people can be ready enough; as it is, revenue is dropping and without the DTI you cannot collect revenue" he said.
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