How will you react to insinuations that there are so many containers that have been abandoned in the port by their importers for one reason or the other?
How will you react to insinuations that there are so many containers that have been abandoned in the port by their importers for one reason or the other?
I will not use the word ‘abandoned’, but actually a lot of containers have not gone out of the ports. The owners of these cargoes find it difficult to raise money from banks, but at the same time the issue of goods at the port should not be a problem, because there is a solution to that; if you look at section 31 of the Customs and Excise Management Act about un-cleared cargoes, the procedure is quite explanatory.
Eventually these consignments may be forfeited to the government
Like I said before, if such goods are not cleared from the port it will be taken to Ikorodu Lighter Terminal after which the importer will have an opportunity again to pick up the cargo, those goods that are perishable will definitely be sold out by auction, the other goods also may be sold by auction if the government has gazetted them for auction.
But in the real sense, does the owner actually get consideration?
It depends on if the owner is aware that the cargo has been shortlisted for auction, but if you do know and you come forward, definitely the Custom gives the importer consideration, provided all customs revenue have been collected.
In the next two months, we expect that Customs should take over destination inspection, are you optimistic that it will happen?
Why not, even before the expiration of time, the Customs have been quite ready. I am getting worried about this propaganda when people talk about the outbreak of cancer arising from the emissions coming from the scanners; scanners are manned by experts and I am aware that the Customs are in full control of that in terms of bringing experts to handle these scanners. The service providers that are presently operating these scanners are not the ones doing it; they have contracted it out to those who do it. I don’t think we will lose anything, this is a minor thing that Nigerians should do; so the Customs are ready and this is what I can tell you from my vantage position. Over 19,000 work force of the Nigeria Customs Service cuts across all kinds of formations and operations and the Customs pick up just about N30billion to do all these, and the service providers are picking N42billion, it is not economically viable and the government is losing a lot of money, so we need to look inwards and remove the country from this present position. Some other ways can be used to patronize anybody, for instance I am interested in taking responsibilities outside the shores of Nigeria in terms of security concerns about the consignment , in this regard I will expect that Cotecna should be called in as far as cargo tracking is concerned and the indigenous operator; Global Scansystems should also be given an opportunity so that goods coming into Nigeria will be properly followed to make sure that terrorist groups do not come in. I am looking at two options now and this is; the customs handling the local aspect of the operations while the external aspect of the operation which has to do with cargo tracking should be handled by these two companies, in doing that we will be creating capacity.
It appear to me that you are advocating a mixture of pre-shipment and destination inspection
I am talking about security for the country; this will be under the control of the Customs, if you look at the ongoing review of the Customs and Excise Management Act it is all about getting autonomy for the Nigeria Custom Service. When the Customs are directly involved in giving out this contract, I think there will be a measure of control, you don’t need anybody to tell you that, today what you have is people from the ministry of finance coming to impugn on the responsibility of the Nigeria Customs, we even wonder sometimes why Customs does not make arrests, when you look at section 11 of the Customs law it talks about obstruction, if you look at what most of them are doing, it doesn’t help in capacity building, it is an obstruction.
The first draft of the CEMA Bill seem to give too much power to the CG of Customs to the detriment of the Minister of Finance and even the President
If you are conversant with the Customs and Excise Management Act you will see the enormous powers inherent in it which are obsolete and do not go with global challenges in terms of international trade. For instance if you look at the Customs and Excise Management Act, the customs has powers (without any warrant) to enter any territory that is reasonably suspected to be stuffed with cargo, that will show you how government is very strict about revenue generation, government does not joke with its revenue. And for me, if you tamper with government revenue you are looking at under-development of the nation. One of the highest offences you can commit in the USA or any of the European country is tax evasion, so we just have to understand this, it’s not just to ask government to do this and that for the people, they cannot do it without money.
The CRFFN is quiet, and it seems people like you have abandoned the council
You can say that to some other persons, but not me, because I am the founder of the CRFFN in Nigeria, I am the originator of the CRFFN, some people may not know what brought about the CRFFN, it is the baby of NAGAFF. I recall my encounter with Chief Adebayo Sarumi when he was the executive secretary of Shippers’ Council and he wanted to keep the register of freight forwarders, but I told him he does not have the powers to do so, from there I looked at other relevant issues about the customs and excise management Act in terms of licensing regulation. In all these, I discovered that the freight forwarders are not independent even though Nigeria has been free since 1960, so I started thinking about how we can liberate ourselves and that is how we began to proffer solutions, you recall that the vice president of FIATA visited Nigeria, we had meetings with him after which he met with the then-transport minister (Ojo Maduekwe) and this is where we decided to regulate our profession in Nigeria. Talking about the inactive nature of the CRFFN, I think the problem of the CRFFN now is the transport ministry, there is this problem between the freight forwarders and the transport ministry struggling who takes control of the council. Nobody is in doubt that the government oversees all activities in the country, CRFFN is partially autonomous, it is a private regulatory body under the supervision of the transport ministry, so it’s like the minister and other executives are seeing it as a parastatal of the transport ministry. I am sure the National Assembly does not allocate any funds to them anymore.
Won’t the Council die like this?
The Council cannot die because the tenure of minister of transport is not permanent, even as I am talking to you, all the five registered associations including the individual members have sat together and talked about the transaction fee. We have put together a Memorandum of Understanding which we have signed, packaged and sent to the minister. If you want to start a process where we will lose our confidence it will not work, you can go ahead and make laws and people do not agree with it. For instance if you call us for a meeting and NAGAFF says none of its members should attend the meeting, ANLCA and others also did not attend, you will get to the meeting and you will not see anybody. The issue is that the minister of transport should understand and be advised that we are under the supervision and control of the transport ministry, as far as Nigeria is concerned, everything belongs to the government, we need to work with him to factor a process where the council will achieve its purpose. You are aware that freight forwarders are being raided at the various ports, the reason is because the CRFFN is not working, if it is working there would be a profile of who is a freight forwarder in Nigeria and you can only do this through the registered associations that must have provided the list of their members and identity cards issued to them. This does not disturb the government from tracking down the criminals at the port, it’s so embarrassing that somebody will wake up in the morning to go to the port and the next thing is that you find yourself in Kirikiri prison. But I think something is happening because NPA has called for a meeting, because we wrote Mr. President and copied the appropriate authorities, so that we can profile who and who gets into the port, we cannot be a slave in our own country.
But a lot of people still blame freight forwarders, especially the associations and people like you for bringing the council to its knees
All we have said is that we are interested in the CRFFN, it is the best thing that has happened to us, it has placed us on same level with other professionals in Nigeria. I have told you where the problem of the CRFFN is coming from; it is from the transport ministry. There is also the issue of the registrar of our council who is an employee, a lot of things have gone wrong that needs to be corrected, the Registrar does not move to be the chief executive officer, the CEO is the elected chairman, as far as I am concerned all the problems in the port can be resolved by the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria, even talking about the issue of compliance and best practices, the CRFFN has enforcement units, they have the powers just like the Standards Organization of Nigeria, all you need is to write to the Inspector General of Police to give you some officers and we can regulate ourselves. The transport ministry really needs to take a cue from the section 5 of the CRFFN Act on the powers of the minister to give direction and character to the council, for you to do this you must be in collaboration and consultations with the critical stakeholders, a time will come when we will really know what the matter is, we are told that the Nigeria Customs Service has written another letter, but we have tried to find out and I don’t think there is any letter to that effect. What is the business of Customs with the money that our clients will have to pay? CRFFN regulates freight forwarders and not importers or exporters, therefore it cannot impose revenue or sanction on an importer, if you want to do this, you must go through the agents.
We got news of another change of customs controllers in Lagos commands again, is this not too frequent?
The port is going through a reform and you know that the Custom Service is ahead of all other agencies as far as transformation and paperless transaction is concerned. I have always said that the government is in the best position to make decisions, provided it is in the interest of the nation. What happened is a swap of positions and this should be left to Customs, people are making other insinuations but it doesn’t make sense, the facts are not available to you on why they have to make those changes.
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