The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), retired Col. Hameed Ali says that the service is committed to mentoring young officers for effective service delivery.
Ali said this in Abuja on Thursday, while marking the International Customs Day, with the theme: “Nurturing the Next Generation: Promoting a Culture of Knowledge-sharing and Professional Pride in Customs’’.
He said that prioritising mentoring had become necessary following new trends, including use of technology to enhance customs operations.
The comptroller-general, who is also the Vice Chairman, West Africa World Customs Organisation (WCO), said customs had enormous task.
He said, “the responsibility of customs in the 21st century goes beyond the traditional role of managing the movement of goods to safeguard revenue.
“The peculiarities and advancements of today have changed societal expectations.
“There is a demand for the evolution of customs’ role to meet challenges like globalisation of business and trade, international terrorism and organised crime.
“Others are environmental, intellectual property and wild life protection, leveraging on new technology, complex trade agreements, strengthening partnerships and more.’’
On the theme of the day, the customs boss said it was in line with efforts to place human capital and particularly the new generation at the heart of the transformation process.
According to him, one major ways of nurturing the next generation is by promoting the culture of knowledge sharing and professional pride.
He said it was important to foster an environment where employees had sense of value and were encouraged to share their expertise.
“The future certainly belongs to the next generation and this explains why every customs administration must prepare them for the future by investing in building their capacity.
“In line with this, we inaugurated a life changing command and staff training programmes under which 600 young customs officers have been trained.
“We are also working on recognising and rewarding employees for their contributions.
“Also, we are providing opportunities for professional development and fostering sense of ownership and accountability among employees,’’ he said.
The customs boss said it was important for the older generation of customs officers to continue to nurture the younger ones for smooth transition in service delivery.
He also said it was important for the younger officers to be adaptive, disciplined and dedicated to the task of nation building.
The Secretary-General of WCO, Kunio Mikuriya said the organisation had been advocating the prioritisation of human capital, saying it was at the heart of customs transformation.
Mikuriya said although young officers had particular strength, there was the need for them to acquire specific knowledge.
“The approach requires dynamic inter-generational relationship and outward-looking attitude, characterised by exchanges with actors engaged in movement of goods and passengers.
“Another interesting approach is to extend collaboration of customs stakeholders and collect multi-disciplinary views.
“However, it has to be recognised that certain Customs organisations do not have the processes and methodologies in place for managing knowledge and ensuring that it is transmitted.’’
The secretary-general said that customs must avoid the loss of organisational memory to ensure that mistakes were not repeated.
He said there was the need for customs administrations to re-echo the 2023 theme among officers, using different strategies.
The highpoint of the event was the presentation of awards to some outstanding officers and customs institutions.
Some of the institutions are the Customs Command and Staff College Gwagwalada, Nigeria Customs Training College Lagos, Nigeria Customs Training College Kano, and Defence Headquarters Abuja.
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