Even as he has officially resumed at his National Secretariat on Monday after losing elections into the House of Representatives, National President of Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Mr Tony Iju has said that he was going to visit the Comptroller General of Customs, Col Hameed Ali over some clearing licenses that were seized by the service for illegally clearing Vehicles from the port.
He also told journalists that the association has written the customs boss, seeking to have an audience with him on the recent deployment of a special intervention team codenamed 'CG strike form team' to intervene in clearance processes at the port.
He said there was need to meet with the Customs Comptroller General on the matter so as to better appreciate the rationale behind the decision.
Speaking, Nwabunike said,” the very first meeting we had with him was the time when some licenses were not renewed because of the maneuvering of vehicles which they said they were investigating and some of them were actually released, the ones they believed were genuine but many of them have not been released and I want them to do that"
"This is part of the reasons I am going for the meeting to know the problem because you can’t keep holding our licenses for a very long time not working. So, it is not as if it is a total failure meeting with him but some movements need to be more remarkable than that”
On the recent deployment of the customs strike force, the ANLCA President said, “it is a matter of urgent attention that requires urgent action.
Of course, I have written a letter to the CG of customs that we want to see him personally, it is not just a matter of newspapers advertorials or media publicity, we want to sit down with him to know the actual reason why this should be because for us even the resident customs officers are feeling insecure too because some of them are thinking they are not doing the right thing or they are being given a vote of no confidence"
"I don’t want to preempt the CG of Customs on this issue, what I want to do is to hear from the horses’ mouth and know why and how should we go about it”.
Asked if he believed that the circular was a vote of no confidence on the resident customs officers by the Management of the Service, he said,” I wouldn’t say that, there must be a reason why he should do that because this is a management decision, this is his internal mechanism, so he must have a reason of doing this. That is why I am seeking for an appointment so that I could see him, we sit down with him and discuss this issue properly and know whether it is going to be a good decision for Nigerians.
“The important thing is our freight forwarders and the people who we are taking the goods for. Will it affect them? What is this thing all about?
Does it mean you don’t trust you resident officers? Or do you want to put checks and balances on the resident officers? He must have a reason for that. So that reason I don’t know and that reason is what we want to know.
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