A freight forwarder and member of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Mr. Nadi Ugochukwu, has accused the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Services (NAQS) of extortion at the ports.
Mr. Ugochukwu who disclosed this in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos on Monday also said that one of the major problems facing the executive order on ease of doing business is that there are no defined functions for agencies at the ports.
He also said that all the agencies that the government asked to leave the ports are still in the ports extorting agents and importers.
"For instance quarantine you know it is only in Nigeria that we depend on documentation we depend on paper but most countries don't depend on that. Like the pallets that are coming from overseas, if you look at it has something stamped on the body that shows that it has been certified but when quarantine look at it they will ask you to go and bring paper and when you don't have paper, they will be asking for money at least N5,000 per container. Sometime you have to go to their office. We have saw dust for containers that are bringing in spare parts to avoid engine oil staining the container. Quarantine will come and tell you that the saw dust is not certified they will take you to their office and you have to pay N5,000 and if they take you to their office they will charge you N12, 000. The N5, 000 is per container whether 20 or 40foot"
"Not just quarantine, all the government agencies that were told to leave the ports all of them are still in the ports. At examination you will see all of them there of you go to all the terminals, you have their offices. None of them left the ports both SON, NDLEA, NAQS amongst others they are all in the ports conducting examination. So, none of them have left the ports. All these talks about exiting them from the ports are all political talks"
He also queried the rational for police being at the examination bay during customs examination, saying that they are only there to collect money.
"There is no defined rule as regards to what actually they are doing. We have about 5units of police coming for examination everything is money. What they are doing is illegal. Five units of police coming to the port, we have the anti-bomb, surveillance, ports CID amongst others all of them come for examination and the minimum they take per container is N2, 000. They will just look at the container and collect the money and if you fail to give them, they will block your container from going"
"The AIG from the headquarters that will now block your container indiscriminately, write to shipping companies that containers shod not w allowed to go. Then for police to be part of examination we were no meant to understand that they should be part of examination. All we were told that they are there for security but you see up to five different units of police at the examination why should it be like that"
He called on the government to establish an enforcement unit which will be charged with the responsibility of arresting any government agencies that are illegally operating in the ports.
"We have spoken and nothing is being done about it, the presidential executive order or ease of doing business. Nothing is being done about it.
The government can send an enforcement and the enforcement should arrest any government agency that is not supposed to be in ports. It should be in form of a strike force, once in a while they come to the port, they go to examination bays and interact with freight forwarders, any agency that is not supposed to be in the ports should be arrested, he stated.
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