For the first time since I first met him, in 1995, and for the first time since I have been interviewing him, Mr Amiwero and I almost had a quarrel that would have aborted this interview. We disagreed on the content and focus of the interaction; I stood my grounds on the basis of one of the purposes of journalism which is that the public has the need to know. He stood his grounds on the basis that my areas of interests were mere sensationalism and of no interests to him; arguing that there were more serious issues than the non-registration of the Council of Managing Directors by the CRFFN. At the end, he agreed that the interview could touch on any areas that I so wish. ‘Mr President’, thank you!
Recently you were invited by the presidency to attend a roundtable on destination inspection, what informed the roundtable?
You know that Destination Inspection will be handed over to the Nigeria Customs Service by the year 2012. The scheme has a tool which has to do with scanning, RAR, hardware infrastructure and software, we have some service providers, like Web Fountaine, we have Global scan and Cotecna; the banks are also involved. You know that the issue of destination inspection was something that National Council of Managing Directors played a very tremendous role in and when you talk about destination inspection the Council was a member of the road map committee and the presidential committee too. So, on the basis of that, the Presidency actually looked at critical aspects of the implementation and invited the Customs, Finance Ministry, NACCIMA, MAN, the designated banks and they have to invite the National Council of Managing Directors, because it is a technical issue and not a political thing and it was meant to look at how we can fine-tune those areas that are impediments to the effective implementation of destination inspection. It was a round table and we actually went into a lengthy discussion looking at the technicalities involved, looking at the details, and the issue of scanning, oversize cargo and so on.
Would you say that the Nigeria Customs Service is ripe enough to take charge of destination inspection of consignments?
Yes, Customs is ripe to take charge because for now there is a transition committee within the finance ministry and they have been holding meetings, you must understand that all these tools are for the Nigeria customs service, the World Customs Organisation has a frame work and the frame work has two pillars; we have a pillar that is Customs to Customs and we have another pillar that is Customs to business and the two pillars actually recognize the tools for security and facilitation of trade. Formerly we just had facilitation of trade and not security, but now you have security and you also have facilitation of trade and the two pillars are talking about the non-intrusion of inspection which is scanning and it is one of the concepts that were developed by WCO under the frame work approach. You must understand that all the tools on WCO are all the tools on implementation of efficient procedure in terms of clearance, so customs is actually involved in all of them. The transition committee is already holding meetings; the whole idea is that by the year 2012 they will hand over. I think the service providers are going to spend another six months to midwife what the customs are doing before they finally exit, I think the customs is prepared for it because they are now trying to pick up in terms of capacity building. I think the customs are prepared.
What precisely is the essence of the meeting?
The essence of calling the meeting is to look at the grey areas that might impede the growth and process of destination inspection, the presidency showed serious concern about it and they looked at the scanning machines and even looked at some other areas that affect the system like the security agencies and so on, they highlighted on it and looked at how they can solve the problem; because they are the pinnacle of power that can give directives on what should be done. In all, 11 areas were highlighted in the resolution which I think the presidency is looking into critically.
Is this not going to be just like one of the committees we have had in the past?
This is not a committee, it is a round table, we finished the meeting and came out with a resolution which I think the presidency is already acting on. Because of the seriousness, I think it will be implemented soon because most of the things that need to be done some of them have been taken care of. When you look at it, we have areas like duplication, selectivity and the issue of oversized cargo, they are also trying to look into how RAR and the other approaches will be harmonized, these are part of the eleven areas that were touched and which were very critical for the success of the industry.
Some of these issues that were examined at the roundtable are also some of the things looked into recently by the ministerial task force on port charges….
Well, unfortunately, those ones are limited because this is from the presidency, that one was a ministerial task force while this one is a presidential thing and they are two different things, this one has gone straight to the President himself for implementation. You must understand that these issues are within the purview of the finance ministry, the customs and the presidency, so transport ministry cannot come in, they can only discuss it and pass it back, transport cannot talk about destination inspection because they are not involved in it, the people who issue the guideline for it are the finance ministry, the process and procedure is from them and they are actually the one that are involved with the service providers, customs is the one that implement all these things. So if you are constituting a committee and you don’t have customs and finance in that committee, how do you get better deliberations on the issue at hand and where do you transfer it to, the ministry of finance is quite different from the ministry of transport, they have different jurisdictions and what we discuss in that round table were all finance ministry and presidency responsibilities. So those things they discussed at the task force is not under task force but under finance so you cannot expect much from them, where you can expect much is from the presidency and the presidency is like the warehouse, every ministry comes to the presidency so transport will just discuss and come back to the presidency. Transport ministry is just about concentration of cargo whereas the finance ministry is for policy implementation on import and export, so transport has limitations, they can talk about shipping companies and NPA, but cannot come and talk about scanners, valuation, oversize cargo and so on which were discussed at the roundtable. All the issues that we discussed are all issues of destination inspection and this is not under transport ministry but under the presidency and finance. When you look at the destination inspection committee, it is under the presidency so the whole thing has to do with the presidency taking once and for all decision on these issues.
Will it not have been much better if you had the CRFFN on that roundtable?
That is if they are relevant, it is not just about having a Council, if they are relevant they should have been there, the truth about it is that it’s a finance ministry thing and we are there because of the technical inputs we have, it’s not a political thing or just being represented there, what are your inputs? What have been your contributions, have you been able to generate anything for the past two years that you have been in existence? So those are the things. We are not talking about CRFFN, Council of Managing Directors, ANLCA or NAGAFF, we are talking about the technical inputs, what do you do or generate? We have to correct one impression; the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding is all about capacity building, 90 percent of their function is for capacity building and they should concern themselves with that area, association matter is quite different.
There are many un-passed maritime sector bills at the National Assembly, are you….
I am very bothered because for the whole of the session, critical bills like those that still there should have been passed, it is a very serious issue because in the next few months, election programmes will start, the legislative year is almost ending and that means there is no other law, most of these bills are still at the lower house and that means that in another regime, they have to start all over again because there is nothing you can do within the next six months, you can not fast track it, they just have about three months to go and then hold elections. It is a disturbing situation in the sense that most of these bills are critical to the existence of the maritime industry. For instance, if you look at the Port Act we are having a problem there because the Act 38 of 1999 is very crucial and very fundamental and if for instance you are still using the Act to midwife our port process, when we have a concession regime so, invariably there is a conflict and the conflict has actually not been addressed. You will find out that the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission now comes into play because when you look at the status of the Act, the BPE law and every other status within the maritime industry, there is no other one that can regulate concessioning but only the infrastructure regulatory commission, it is a commission that takes care of the airports and seaports in terms of concession and contract. When we look at the bills coming in; the Port Act, have to be looked into critically because he Infrastructure Regulatory commission it is an Act of parliament that was passed since 2005 and this one is just a draft bill, so you don’t have anything on concession or contract other than the concession infrastructure regulatory agency commission and they have been given the power to take control of concession all over the country, so we have a problem there and because of the porous nature of our port system where nobody regulates or controls, it is necessary for the commission to take over immediately and assume their responsibility in line with their law which is Act 18 of 2005. Under section 20, it says to take custody of every concession agreement, this means that every concession agreement in the county that has to do with the seaport and airport, it is very clear that the commission will be in charge of it, not only that it says the terms and conditions includes all existing content of the agreement and contract. They have the legal right to regulate and it is now left for them to build the capacity, there is a difference between having the legal right to do something and having the capacity, so they have the legal right based on section 28A-D and based on section 36 which actually specifies seaports as one of the places that must be concessioned and regulated under concession and contract agreement, so it is very clear.
What is the role of BPE in all these?
The BPE is just to talk about shares, if you look at section 6 of the infrastructure regulatory commission, BPE is talking about shares which is to privatize an organization after this they now send it down for concessioning, it is the concession that will now allocate the bidding and not BPE, if you look at the law, the BPE is talking about shares and privatization, this one is talking about concession and contract, so the contract that has been concessioned are supposed to be regulated by this commission, the BPE is to push companies from public to private sector, but when you talk about concessioning, it is actually run by the infrastructure regulatory commission. So now that we have this law, we have written to the presidency that this people should commence regulation immediately so that this porous port system where importers are made to pay high charges will be controlled. Now we have an agency that can control and insist on the terms and condition of the concession agreement, the component of the agreement has an obligation for the terminal operators, NPA and the government including the people in general because the concession is done for the benefits of Nigerians in general so that they can benefit from their God- given resources. So we believe that if all these laws have been passed it would have been able to go a long way in addressing some issues in the maritime industry.
The Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents was not registered by CRFFN, neither were you as an individual?
You don’t need an association to be registered, the law of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding does not say specifically that associations should be registered, there is no provision in that Act that says so. Secondly, the constitution is very clear in section 40 which gives the provision that every individual has the right of free association; so you don’t regulate and control associations; it is based in the Nigerian constitution and if any law works contrary to the constitution that law is not tenable, so you can not control associations, it can only be controlled by the law that establish it.
Don’t you think people will be surprised to hear you say this?
No. it is the law, the people that they (CRFFN) are supposed to have register is freight forwarders, the Act does not allow CRFFN to register freight forwarding associations, it’s only the company and people.
But your company was not registered
I am not a freight forwarder; I am a licensed customs agent. Apart from this, the National Council of Managing Directors did not apply to the CRFFN because there are very serious issues on ground which the Court of Appeal has to decide, the High Court has decided in our favour; that we have the locus standi to sue them for all what they have done which is null and void, so you don’t expect me to start going to a Council that is illegal, the CRFFN is illegal for now because the composition is not properly done, these are the areas that the court want to address properly, so you don’t expect me to go and register with the body because we have not been able to look at the critical areas of who is a license customs agent or who is a freight forwarder, they are two laws, we have the CEMA and the CRFFN.
But you contested to be a member of the governing council of CRFFN…..?
When we contested we were looking at those critical areas so that we will be able to rectify them because they are very fundamental and do not meet up with the law and the reason why we went to court is to rectify those areas, so you don’t expect me to go to court and still go and register, National Council of Managing Directors did not apply and for point of emphasis we don’t have a faction.
The record shows that the Council of Managing Directors did apply
If you look at the address, it is not our own, the people who are doing this are people who have been arraigned in court as criminals who forged the Councils’ letter headed paper and everything. Ndee, Obieze and the rest of them have been arraigned in court; you must understand that this is a body that has been in existence since 1998. CRFFN can not tell us how the Council of Managing Directors should be run because we have our constitution.
The CRFFN says some of your members are not chief executives of any company
Those are the people they are using, all members of the council are chief executive officers of their respective companies, I don’t know what they are doing, they know the people they are dealing with and those people have been charged for criminality and forgery.
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