Mr Tayo Ogungbemile sits quietly managing the Chrismatel Empire. Unknown to many, he is also a foremost member of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, apart from being the spokesperson for bonded terminal owners. Our encounter convinced that Ogungbemile is one the few members of ANLCA who are still very passionate about the association and who eagerly awaits a new dispensation for the oldest freight forwarding body. He spoke to me about concessioning, operations of bonded terminals and his confidence in the on-going process to fully democratize ANLCA.
Since you are appearing as my guest on this pages for the first time, I will like you to briefly introduce yourself
My name is Babatope Ogungbemile, I am from Ekiti state, I schooled in Lagos and Ijebu-Ode, I started working with Chrismatel group in 1991 and I have been in the maritime industry since then.
It’s quite obvious that you are well read, but the notion still persists that most clearing agents are not well educated
The impression of some people about clearing agents being drop outs is totally wrong, there are some of us who are graduates, I graduated in 1987 before coming into the industry and there are some people as well that I know who studied in places like the USA and in Europe before they became licensed customs agents and came into the maritime industry. I think why some of us are looked at as drop- outs is that in those days, we use to have informal training or call it; apprenticeship, which means attaching people to different organizations. These are the things that they look at that time, but the core people are the business owners who run the business and there are many of them who are graduates and who are educated, that is what I know.
We are now in 2010 and I think it’s only natural to ask for your perspective of the maritime sector in 2009
At the beginning of the year and up until the first quarter, the maritime industry was performing very well; it was towards the second quarter of the year that we had the bank shake – up and as you know, it is the banks that run this industry because our clients always take loans to import their consignments and after selling they return the money to the banks, so when there is problem with the banks, definitely there will be problem in the industry too, the banks are the heartbeat of the economy and if anything goes wrong it translates to all other sectors of the economy and that is why the performances was low towards the end of the year too. But I know that with the restructuring of the banks and the guidelines they have put in place, our clients have now known what and what to do, so looking at the first quarter of 2010, things will improve and normalcy will return.
We really did not experience port congestion in 2009, why did it happen?
The question we should ask is what is causing the congestion, there are many factors responsible for port congestion, first is the limited facilities in the ports; there is also human element and the rest of it. So, if you remove all these things, you will not experience congestion, I think that in a way, that was why we didn’t experience congestion last year. You may recall that at the beginning of the year, some concessionaires embarked on massive expansion of their facilities at the ports, also, in the beginning of last year, the Nigeria Customs Service also put many things in place to enhance efficiency cargo clearing and ensure free flow of containers and delivery, the dwelling time of containers at the ports is less than what it was in 2008. So, we can say that there was no congestion in 2009 when compared with what we experienced in 2008; there is also improvement in vessels’ turn- around time at the port which also made congestion to be minimized in 2009.
Are relevant are bonded terminals in the scheme of things; considering that most concessionaires are now full on ground?
There is a role that we both perform; the concessionaires are inside the port while we the bonded terminals are outside the ports, we operate what can be termed as dry port; it’s only that vessels cannot berth inside our own terminal. Basically, the concessionaires offload the cargo and there must be a transfer of the cargo to the warehouse, we are the ones outside that are taking care of the needs of the concessionaires, so we work hand- in – hand, they make use of our facilities and we make use of theirs and that the way the relationship is.
As the public relations officer of association of bonded terminal operators, what is your take on the allegation that most of these terminals are not well equipped?
As the PRO of bonded terminals association, I can confirm to you that about three years ago, we did an auditing of ourselves, we went round all our terminals and we looked at the equipment, the facilities, human factors and the rest and we have been able to tell our members what and what to put in place, also before the concessionaires make use of your terminals they come around to check on our facilities regularly to ascertain the state of the cargo handling equipment, they are doing business with us so the notion that we are not well equipped is not true, because if we are not well equipped these people will not be making use of our facilities, but in any business, there is always room for improvement and we are on it to take care of the flow of containers.
Some people are of the opinion that there are too many bonded terminals
Well, if you are talking about too many bonded terminals, the question you are supposed to ask is who is licensing them, if there is no need for them the government will not license them, the people applied and since there is still need for them that’s why the government approved them and put them in place. If you say there are too many bonded terminals, how many do we have in Lagos state, if you spread it round the whole country it’s not even enough, but what people are saying is that there is a concentration in Lagos state, but you can’t run away from this, because almost 75 per cent of cargo coming to Nigeria come through Lagos ports, we need these terminals to warehouse the goods before the owners pick them up.
What is latest on the containers that were alleged to have disappeared while in transit between the port and one of the bonded terminals last year?
I have already issued a press statement in my capacity as the PRO of the association to inform the public about the situation. This is the first time that such a notice was received in our association about missing containers. It actually involved two of our members and we are looking into it, we have set up our own committee to look into the matter, at the moment we are aware that the Customs too has set up there own investigation team to look at it. What I want to say is that there are guidelines in place for a container moving from point A to point B and it has been given to our members because there must be some level of security, we must have federal operation officers escorting the containers from point 1 to point 2, we ourselves have put some security in place, so the issue of missing containers is being looked into and at the end of the day whatever we find out we will let the public know about it.
But is shocking that a container will just disappear into thin air…
As I have said, there are operational guidelines that we have put in place; I agree with you that a container is not like a needle, it’s big and everyone can see it, so telling us that a container is missing I don’t see it like that, there must be something wrong, we need to look at where the journey started from to where he container is supposed to arrive as well to also show that it was received, so we as an association is very much interested in what transpired in-between the journey, remember also that the containers are escorted, so it’s not a small thing that we can just say we are looking for. It is only after investigations are concluded that this question can be answered.
As a foremost port operator, will you also affirm that port concession is a success?
Globally, port concession is the thing that is in vogue, the countries that concessioned their ports put many things in place; there should be pre-concession era before the main concession takes place when stakeholders would be thoroughly enlightened about the process and implication. After that, there would be post- port concession assessment whereby whatever is missing will be put in place. At this point, if we observe that some things are not being done right, there is opportunity to correct these shortcomings. The questions are: were the stakeholders carried along, were the workers in the ports carried along and do they know what and what is being done? Port workers and stakeholders were not adequately carried along, they just saw that the port has been concessioned, if they are carried along and sufficient is given it would have been okay, but not to say that we are concessioning this port today and you have to leave today, is wrong. Also after the concession, government ought to have se up a monitoring mechanism or agency to see that the concessionaires are following the set rules. In other countries, port concession is helping their economy in terms of physical developments, so we have to go back and ask them if there are any new developments they have been doing since four years ago, we compare and tell it to the public if not then we go back to where we are before.
Please, can you be more specific on your appraisal?
As I said earlier, I don’t have the statistics readily here, so I cannot tell you if it’s doing very well or not, but when I look at the statistics, then one can be more specific, but at the moment there is no statistics, so I won’t be able to say categorically that this is what is going on.
As a frontline member of the Association of Nigerian Licensed customs Agents, what is your take on the current electoral process and the efforts of the electoral committee, ASECO?
The process is okay, there must be things in place before you can conduct elections and I am happy with the ASECO for what they have done and what they are still doing, they have put so many things in place and that is the beginning of a good thing for the association, they have conducted elections in some chapters and if things work out the way they are, we know that elections will soon be concluded in the western zone. I quite appreciate the way ASECO has put the house in order. It’s quite okay. I know that with what the committee has done so far, there will be no problem with other elections as well.
You are sounding so confident….
I have confidence in ASECO because they are doing a good job.
What is your take on the proliferation of freight for warding associations? We have NAGAFF, Council of Managing Directors and many others
All the associations that you mentioned are all doing the same job, all they are looking for is how to improve the lot of the industry and the individuals in the associations. Of course, we have ANLCA as the parent body of all the freight forwarding associations in the maritime industry. The founding fathers of these new associations will have to sit down and ponder again over why they branched out, if we have one big family and our father is doing the right thing, the children will be very proud of their father. We have to know what the problem is that warranted their having to float new associations, once we get that, then we can bring everybody back to the same fold under one big umbrella.
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