The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has lambasted the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) for keeping mum over the extortion of customs agents by law enforcement agencies in the ports.
NAGAFF also berated the association for allegedly trying to truncate the collection of practitioners’ operations fee (POF). It alleged further that ANLCA members pay as much as N5,000 to N15,000 on each container as bribe to customs officers and police officers.
The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has lambasted the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) for keeping mum over the extortion of customs agents by law enforcement agencies in the ports.
NAGAFF also berated the association for allegedly trying to truncate the collection of practitioners’ operations fee (POF). It alleged further that ANLCA members pay as much as N5,000 to N15,000 on each container as bribe to customs officers and police officers.
Deputy President of NAGAFF; Mr. Ugochukwu Nnadi in a chat with Shipping Position Daily said that ANLCA was acting out of ignorance in kicking against the collection of POF.
He said that the practitioners fee as it is currently being collected by ANLCA alone is not up to 10% of the money they will collect when the money is collected by the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN)
"ANLCA is kicking against practitioners fees out of complete ignorance. Though ANLCA is collecting the money now, I can tell you that what they are collecting is peanuts compared to when the money is unanimously collected"
"Many of their members come to the gate and they will tell you that they have gone to the secretariat to pay and it is a lie, many times they usually fight at the gate and they refuse to pay, currently they are collecting less than 10 percent of the total amount, but when it is collected at the source they will benefit more" Nnadi stated.
The NAGAFF chieftain said that the CRFFN has been empowered to collect the POF. He said the Act establishing CRFFN part 2, Section 6, Sub-section 1,2,3, authorizes them to keep an account, to raise money, either contribution or subscription as well as other fees that could be paid by members, it will be used to sustain Council and for capacity building.
Out of the POF collected by the CRFFN, he said that the clearing agency is given five percent of the collection while 35 percent goes to the association.
"This is what we have been craving for all along; we have been fighting customs and telling them that we are supposed to be receiving a percentage of what we have been clearing"
"It will not increase the cost of business in any way, before you cut a seal on a container you will pay labor N500 which is not accounted for, after off loading and examination you will still give labor between N3000 to N5000 on one container, this is not supposed to be, because already you have paid for this on your debit note; examination and unstuffing"
"ANLCA is there seeing all these and they are not saying anything"
"There are five different units of police that will come for examination, you have to give all of them at least N1000 on each container, the police alone collect N5000 on each container you drop and this money goes into individual pockets, yet ANLCA is kicking against N500 we are asked to pay to better our lots in the industry"
He reiterated that the people that will pay the money are not ANLCA members, saying a total of 1,200 licenses are currently in operation and they are mostly owned by customs officers, the ones belonging to ANLCA is less than 600 and the CRFFN has 3000 members.
"There are other places that our money goes to that need to be blocked, if you want to go and load a container you will give security N500 to take the truck in, about N15,000 is spent unaccounted for and ANLCA is keeping a blind eye to the extortion of agents, they are also paying these money"
"Before now, the police do not get involved in examination; they only provide security, all of a sudden, they started with the bomb squad, when they come to your container you must give them at least N1000 that is if they can walk into the container.
"ANLCA members are there, not minding and paying this money, but the little that should come to agents they have refused" Nnadi lamented.
Discussion about this post