Alhaji Babatunde Mukalia is the immediate past National Secretary and Sole Administrator of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA). In this interview with Oluyinka Onigbinde, he discusses about the association and the industry in general.
In the last NECOM where you served, the board had a little bad blood with the NECOM and as such, there was not a smooth transition of power. So why are you now vying for the position on the board?
I’m going into the Board of Trustees to bring innovation because you can’t continue to do same thing all over and over again and expect to get a different result. The board of trustees has specific roles. The problem in ANLCA over the years which we kept repeating was that our own Board of Trustee transcends the government’s enabling law and functions and started dabbling into the governance of the association. Who is the Chairman Board of Trustee for NAGAFF? You have been in the system over time, but you could not even drop his name. The faces of the association are those that governs. Whatever are their actions or inaction are squarely on the table of the President. Not every one knows the Chairman Board of Trustees of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the MD is what everybody knows. So I am going into the association board, God willing , if I am elected to let everyone know that our role is not to rival with the President of go against whatever he needs to do. The constitution stipulates that the board of trustees shall meet just three times in a year. So how come every step of the President is being matched by that of the board? So, we need to go back to this constitution and get our roles right. And those are what I think we need to do differently, which I’m bringing to the table.
You have been referred to as the encyclopaedia of ANLCA while serving as the National Secretary and as such there are insinuations that the NECOM and President are the ones pushing for you to be on the board. Is this the true situation or it is a deliberate attempt by yourself to see that you get into the board?
I have never been under the tutelage of anyone with all the position I have held in ANLCA. I just gave reasons why I need to be in the Board because I felt if I’m not there, we will continue to do the same thing same way and expect to have a different result, which is not possible. So, nobody is urging me on. It is a very tough decision that I need to take, because having stepped down last September, I felt ANLCA is in the past for me, because I’ve given ANLCA everything I have since 2010 and that came with a price which is my office, my tentacles in business and others. When the very key client calls me. I say “please I’m in a meeting, I’ll call you back”. Most times you forget to do that. So at a point they have to choose between my being detailed with their job or getting another person. So that came with a price and I felt I don’t really have that time to give the 24/7 attention. But at another thought when I saw and have the feel of some unknown people coming in into the same board having interest. I said okay we are going to get back to Egypt, because people will be coming into the board without really knowing what ANLCA is all about or where has the rain started beating us. So I see us going back to Egypt and I said I need to move in to make a difference.
Some people believe that towards the end of your tenure, there seems to be a kind of cold war or a bad blood between you and the acting President at that time and that the cold war or the bad blood is still there. How true is this?
Dr. Kayode Farinto is my immediate boss during my tenure. It is quite unfortunate that we never had a very good time as NECOM. I still want anybody to prove me wrong, that is the best NECOM that ANLCA has ever had, because we had a great team. We had Tony Iju who has the reach to break any door in this country. We had Farinto who is very vocal and can take anything as regards operational matters. I did my little best administratively. Yes, we did what we needed to do but what nobody should take away from us was that we kept ANLCA intact even with the fight. It got so dangerous that you would recall the use of cutlasses and guns. But we had belief in ANLCA and we stayed put. On the issue of bad blood, there’s no bad blood. Election has come and gone. That was in the past. I didn’t run for any election anyway. Dr Farinto ran for the election, unfortunately he lost. There’s nothing like bad blood. It’s just the election semantics. I’m not a politician. They are all politicians; they played their politics. I wasn’t involved. Just as I’m trying to do an intervention now with the board, when I saw the pendulum then, I had to accept to be the sole administrator of the association briefly to hold forth, so the election could be conducted and done with. So it’s just an election thing. There is nothing like bad blood.
Specifically, can you pinpoint some of the things we should be expecting from the board if elected?
I want to see a Board that innovates. When I came into ANLCA in 2010 as the Chairman Electoral Committee, there was no single database. Although we all know and have familiarity with every member of the association, but nobody knows who is who or at which particular chapter. So we started the innovation. Today, you can say Mickey Excellence Nigeria Limited is a member of Apapa Port. So going into that board, I want to see board that innovates and play their roles specifically. I would like to be in a board that help the President to succeed and not antagonistic to the President. I would like to be in a board that advise the President in the right perspective and about the trend of what maritime sector and the Customs brokerage is all about. Of course, when the President sings, we sing together. And when he does well, it will be to the glory of the association. In a nutshell, I just want us to have a board which will do everything possible to make the President succeed and not rival the President. I want to see a board who is less involved with the day-to-day running of the association, so that we can put the blame squarely on who has not done right not just muddling things up. In the 21st century that we are, I want to see a board that will rise up to the position that ANLCA needs to be, so that we can innovate and put the association first besides individuality. I just want to make a difference, innovate the board, be less or zero antagonistic to the President and give the advisory role so that the President, NECOM and the association at large can succeed.
There are insinuations that one of the reasons there is discontent in the association is because the President is imposing some new members in some committees, even without consulting. What do you have to say about all this happening in ANLCA?
In ANLCA, we have equal membership. What makes you a member of ANLCA is your license. If you are a member of ANLCA and you are given a position to serve, it shouldn’t be tampered with. The buck stops on the table of the President. He must have made his due diligence before appointing people and you know exactly what you want them to achieve. So if a new member is given the opportunity, I don’t see anything bad in that. When I came into ANLCA, in fact most of them who were the power brokers then didn’t know me. So, new people need to come.
So, what would be your advice to the President regarding the crisis in ANLCA particularly at the Airport Chapter as we have it?
I don’t see any crisis because when there was crisis, I was in the thick of it. After our election, we ended up having about 21 court cases, which I was able to disperse 19. This President, since after the election, which is almost going to be one year now, there is no court case. So there is no crisis. For me to give the President advise, the President is a listening President, and I am sure he is doing all his consultations and all those stuffs. ANLCA crisis over five years ago has taught me one lesson which is that we can never resolve issues at the Court neither at the Police Station. You will end up coming back to the table. So, my advice to the President is that any issue in ANLCA will end up at the table. Why not sit down and resolve issues because we have passed through the Police and Court route before and it doesn’t lead to anywhere and the President is doing just that. He’s doing a lot of consultations and I am sure of that. I don’t see any crisis at the airport. It’s just some misunderstanding which is going to be resolved.
Recently, the World Bank released the Logistic Performance Index and Nigeria ranked above 90 with countries like South Africa, Benin Republic, Mali and some other landlocked countries rating better than Nigeria in their category. What are the factors you think is inhibiting trade facilitation in Nigeria?
You cannot have trade facilitation and revenue target. They are two parallel lines. Trade facilitation means that if you want to be an exporter and you have labeled this
water and there are some discrepancies, they can just address it. That way, you are facilitating trade. But because you have a target and you want to take maximum penalty as your price, they will say “oh you did not put this 750 ml then we are going to apply 25 percent penalty on this”. That is not trade facilitation; that is targeting revenue. So until Nigeria decides to facilitate trade and Customs as the lead agency are ready to do that. Meeting your target is a different ball game. You can meet your target but the Logistics Performance Index has given us
the real value of what we have. You cannot continue to pursue target and you want to improve on the performance index, it’s not possible. Few days ago, we had the AfCFTA launch by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. If you look at that sitting, where are the freight forwarders? Those are the last mile for whatever you are pushing. You are talking of AfCFTA, what does that mean? It means a Ghanaian can come to Nigerian ports as a freight forwarder to deliver a cargo; it is a border-less arrangement. That is what AfCFTA is all about. It is one market. I can ship a cargo to Morocco and take a flight as a freight forwarder and take it out of their port. Is that possible in Nigeria here? We just do a lot of paparazzi without really looking at the details. So the Performance Index will need to be looked into when Nigeria’s lead agents which is the Customs do what is right. Customs have really started well. I’m impressed with the CG; Adewale Adeniyi. At least, for a start, he has started displaying globally accepted trade tools talking about Advanced Ruling, Advanced Economics Operator (AEO). These are incentivised tools to enable a willing compliance. When you have AEO, other importer who does not benefit, who want to know what are the criteria for us to have to be on that programme and they want to increase their compliance level.
You should incentivize even the freight forwarders. When Apapa Customs rises up and say we make N1Trillion in six months. I make an analogy of it; it’s like I’m buying a product
and I’m transferring the money to your account and you are receiving an alert and you go to the TV and say you make N1Trillion. I made the payments; the freight forwarders comply and go to pay at the bank. You received the alert and you go to the TV to say you made One trillion. Yes, you made it because you are the authority receiving the alert, but what are you
doing to incentivize the people who are making the payment or telling the customers/importers that they need to make this payment. There is nothing.
There seems to be issues surrounding payments of POF at the port which has led to crises particularly with CRFFN saying that they’ve not been able to pay staff salaries for months. Some people are calling for the unbundling of the Council and perhaps scrapping it. What will be your take on this?
I will not subscribe to the scrapping of CRFFN because that is what is expected to be a fall-back platform for all freight forwarders. Yes the CRFFN has missed their mandate and they are not doing anything to better the aspiration of the average freight forwarder. But that does not mean that the mandate and the founding ideas should be jeopardized. What I would advise is that CRFFN need to trace back their steps and see where it started getting it wrong. CRFFN is the platform that the average freight forwarder has. Today, who can an average freight forwarder go to?
