President of Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (AREFFN); Dr. Frank Ukor in this interview with Shipping Position Daily correspondent; Dapo Olawuni last week, raised alarm on alleged plans by the Ministry of Transportation to collapse all freight forwarding associations into two bodies. He also said that smuggling at the border posts has reduced significantly.
‘’Customs is not helping matters, they have thrown trade facilitation to the dustbin, what they are interested in is revenue target’’
There has been a lot of complaints from many quarters about extortion at the ports, are your members also affected?
Our members are affected, and I remember that I have written letters twice to the Nigerian Shippers’ Council to complain about the arbitrary charges, we requested to know whether those charges were discussed or approved. My people have also complained about extortion and corruption by the police, I don’t know how the police get the shipping manifest, but they usually send instructions to the customs and the shipping company to delay some containers they are interested in, this is a form of extortion, once you give them N200,000 the case would be buried. The same thing applies to other organizations like SON and NAFDAC. So, what ANLCA and NAGAFF are doing is in order, but certain procedures have to be taken, you cannot just go and close down the ports, if you close down the ports you must have given every person time to step up what they were doing before you can say you want to protest, but all these were not done by the two associations. We have an agency that regulates freight forwarding, and freight forwarding includes customs brokerage, and if we have such issues of protests, it should be taken to the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) which would now call a meeting of all the registered associations. If NAGAFF and ANLCA want to close down the port, the right thing is that the CRFFN should have been contacted, the CRFFN would now contact every person and associations to tell their members to withdraw their service, by so doing the withdrawal would be total. But ANLCA and NAGAFF have shut out the other three associations – AREFFN, NAFAC, and Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents, it’s supposed to be done by every association registered by the CRFFN. If ANLCA and NAGAFF are closing down the ports, it cannot be total, what stops me from telling my members not to go along with them? I would tell them that if these two associations are doing anything at the port, they should work against it, go about their normal businesses. My advice to these two associations is to get others and call a town hall meeting as we did during the time of JACOFF, so that we can all sit down and agree on these things, we need to protest but it has to be total.
Does it mean that AREFFN does not have good relationship with other freight forwarding associations?
We have had an on-going battle with ANLCA because they don’t want AREFFN to succeed, they don’t even want to hear our name. I was once a member of ANLCA, but because of their manipulations, I pulled out with my members in 2006 to start our own association. I don’t have any personal issues with Shittu as ANLCA President, when we see each other we shake hands, we are best of friends, but when it comes to issues of association, they don’t want to see us at all.
How is your relationship with NAGAFF?
I don’t have any problems with NAGAFF, we have had good relationship, the only thing is that, at that time when we had a meeting with the minister over POF when the questions came up about who is a declarant, and I said that from my own understanding, a declarant is the person that passes the entry which is the corporate body, but because of this, the Founder of NAGAFF, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam has been accusing us that we sold out and that we betrayed him, instead of us going to say that the declarant is the individual, but I told him my understanding of the declarant is different. Aniebonam is my very good friend, we speak all the time, but whenever I call Shittu, he doesn’t pick my calls. However, NAGAFF has never been comfortable with AREFFN because we are also a freight forwarding association, they have always been looking for ways to swallow AREFFN, but I have told them that I have scales on my body, and if you swallow me it would affect you all over.
Would you say business at the seaports have improved considering the ban of some items through land borders?
You cannot say so, because there is no basis of comparison, the port is very empty, you can even play football there now because containers are not there, nothing is happening, I could remember sometimes ago when you pick Shipping Position Daily, at the back page you will see a lot of vessels lined up to arrive the country, but now, you can count the number of vessels coming in with your fingertips, there is nothing happening, business is very dull and the customs is not helping matters, they have thrown trade facilitation to the dustbin, what they are interested in is revenue target. As far as I am concerned, it is a big mistake for the government to close the borders against certain cargoes, any goods you ban from this country is an opportunity for security agents to enrich themselves because those goods would still come into this country whether you like it or not. However, customs are becoming more serious in manning the borders these days, before now, the borders used to be porous even though there are men manning them, you only contravene when you don’t go ahead to book your cargo to cross the border and pay some money, when you do this, they would all look the other way and allow the goods to pass through.
How do you mean that the customs are doing well at the borders now?
I said they are doing better now because they are making more arrests now, and because of this, smugglers are now changing tactics, some of them have started changing their minds by going to pay duty as against before. Unlike before when they would fly 200 cars through the borders, now it is rare, you would only see them smuggling like 10 cars, while they would pay duty on the rest of them, even if they pay compromised duty, it is still the same as paying duty.
What is your take on the decision of customs to stop cars on highways and collect duty?
On this, we have issues, there are people that bought their cars 2005, 2006 and beyond, probably they bought the cars and somewhere along the line they discovered that these cars were not properly cleared, but it is already late, over 12 years have elapsed, so what do we do about these ones? These are some of the questions the Comptroller General needs to answer us. From my understanding, once a vehicle is more than seven years, you don’t ask them to pay duty again.
What is your take on the Senate mandating Customs CG to wear his uniform?
It is very simple, I remember when I was in the seminary, they told us that “it is not the hood that makes the monk”, in order words, it is not the uniform that makes the CG, whether he wears uniform or not, it is not important, the important thing is what he is here to achieve. When the CG came, he said he has his mandate from the Presidency and he is working hard to achieve these mandates, so they should give him a chance to achieve his mandates, wearing uniforms would not add or subtract from that mandate or make him achieve less. So, we are happy with the National Assembly and what they are doing, especially on the decision of the customs to start stopping vehicles on the highway, if customs should go ahead with this, they would be so tired of going to court because Nigerians would definitely sue them to court.
Are you impressed with the way the CG of Customs has administered the customs so far?
We have seen some positive changes he is bringing into the system and we give him kudos for that, but he is still very far from achieving that mandate because corruption that he came to fight is still very much there, it is even higher now than what it used to be. I made a suggestion sometimes ago that, if you want to stop corruption at the port, you have to use insiders who are the practitioners, but the CG is not interested, so how would he now fight the war from Abuja. He has continually refused to meet with stakeholders and clearing agents who interact on daily basis with his men; these are the people he can get information from. If Ali wants to win the war against corruption, he cannot do it alone with his men.
On the issue of POF, where does the case stand now?
The last time, some terms of settlement were prepared for us to sign, but the principal thing which ANLCA requested for which is filling the board of the council, nothing was said about it, we refused to sign, NAGAFF and ANLCA also refused to sign. So eventually we agreed to meet in Abuja, we suggested that we should meet in Lagos since most of us are in Lagos, they called a meeting for us in Abuja for 1st of March, and I asked them if there was any provision for logistics but they said no, the last time we attended a meeting in Abuja, they couldn’t even give us water at the ministry not to talk of lunch, so this time around we told them, we are not coming, it would be better for for two people from the ministry; their lawyer and their director of legal services to fly to Lagos than for five of us to fly to Abuja. At the end of the day, nobody went for the meeting. Think about all the risk involved in that journey, and we are not insured. So, on the 9th of March, the matter came up at the court but ANLCA lawyer was not around, they have moved the case to May. ANLCA is trying to delay the process because they are still collecting money at the port, CRFFN is supposed to enforce this, but they have dragged the CRFFN to court.
What is the best way out of CRFFN crisis?
I heard from a grape vine that what the government did with the NUJ ( on the maritime media associations), they are trying to use the NPA to do same with freight forwarders by adopting only two associations, if they are planning it, they better stop it, we have already a council established to regulate freight forwarding, but some individuals do not want to make it work and this is why the Council is like a dull duck.
ANLCA is hitting CRFFN from the right, NAGAFF is hitting it from the left, and it is only Mike Jukwe that is there, I don’t know why he has refused to conduct elections, if the board is in place, they cannot do all these things, this is why the government is trying to collapse all the associations, I have a fundamental human right and nobody can force me to join any other association, this was the fight we fought before the CRFFN eventually registered us, more associations would come, the IFFA is gearing up and the membership are people of substance in the industry, people who own the greater bulk of goods coming into this country, they are now establishing chapters everywhere, they want to be reckoned with. So, let the government forget about this idea of collapsing the associations into two.
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