The Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has called on the office of the Nigerian Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo to suspend the Executive Order on Ease of Doing Business, saying that the order has been greatly abused by maritime industry players, especially Nigeria Customs, Police, Shipping Companies and terminal operators.
In a press statement issued at the weekend, Acting National President of ANCLA, Dr. Kayode Farinto equally charged the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency declare a State of Emergency in the maritime sector over the high level of infrastructural decadence.
He alleged that Maritime Police are now demanding a whooping N150,000 from importers whose cargoes have already been cleared by the customs.
While lamenting the suffering and serious extortion of his members by Nigeria Customs officials and Maritime Police he said "The Controller General of Nigerian Customs Service, Hameed Ali is not bigger than Nigeria, he cannot continue to flout the Executive order and actions is yet to be taken, the Inspector General of Police should come to the port and see how the maritime police has left there statutory functions and now obtain manifest from shipping companies and be stopping containers and call agents for settlement in which one hundred and fifty thousand is been paid per container"
"We hereby call for state of Emergency or better Suspend Ease of Doing Business in the maritime sector " because it is not working. Ministries, Directorate and Agencies (MDA's) behave to be bigger than the Federal Government, they are working for and also flouting orders given by Nigerian Ports Authority with impunity and no sanctions meted to them. Are they now bigger than the country?" he asked rhetorically.
Continuing, he said "We don't need to pretend, because there is total systems collapse in the maritime industry. Hence the FG should stop deceiving Nigerians and stop shouting about Ease of doing business because it has been abused"
Other reasons the association gave for calling for the state of emergency includes; dilapidated port infrastructures like road networks and the extortion of agents by the Nigeria Customs Service.
Others are the non existence of multimodal transport and the multiple checking points by the Nigerian Customs Service and various extortion by the Maritime Police and other government agencies not complying with Executive order.
"Failure of NCS to conform to the implementation of ease of doing business, double examination on containers, extortion of ANCLA members, Customs release and arrest and rearrest of containers and above all, activities of FOU to query consignment base on low cargo and low value".
He noted that with the inconsistency of FG policy and implementation, coupled with the fact that Shipping companies and Terminal Operators have refuse to implement, it would be difficult to implement the federal government's ease of doing business order
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