Osisi Tico Philips (Vice-chairman, NAGAFF)
The issue of the import and export procedures when considering the age of CEMA, you will certainly agree with me that it needs to be reviewed and given a total reformation because it falls short of international best practices, when you consider some aspects of subvention that deals with import and export procedures, considering that option I think there is need for a total abrogation if not reform of the CEMA because this has to do with the Nigerian economy which is the most important at the moment.
Osisi Tico Philips (Vice-chairman, NAGAFF)
The issue of the import and export procedures when considering the age of CEMA, you will certainly agree with me that it needs to be reviewed and given a total reformation because it falls short of international best practices, when you consider some aspects of subvention that deals with import and export procedures, considering that option I think there is need for a total abrogation if not reform of the CEMA because this has to do with the Nigerian economy which is the most important at the moment.
Festus Ukwu(Director, Publicity, NCMDLCA)
Any amendment or whatever changes that would be made now should be in line with the international best practices and it should go with the modern requirement in freight forwarding, because there are a lot of things that ought to be amended in the old CEMA since we don’t know the areas they are trying to amend or change whereby when this has been done, there will now be inputs by the stakeholders.
Ugochukwu Nnadi (Deputy National President, NAGAFF)
CEMA was enacted by our colonial masters in 1958, it was CEMA which protected the interest of the colonialists, and it has remained like that till this moment, there is no aspect of CEMA that is user-friendly, customer friendly, indigenous- friendly or nation- friendly. For example, looking at how it was tailored, the value of goods, import and export, since we know that import and export is done to protect local industry, but if you see how it is being implemented now, it is for the generation of revenue , which has been causing the increase of revenue every year, when you say consignment, according to CEMA if anything is not declared it shall be condemned and forfeited, you know we are all human beings, something might take your attention while you are loading and there is no excuse in law. CEMA has to be reviewed in its entirety, because when a customer is using a license which is operational in all the states in the federation, if somebody commits an offence within Port Harcourt, he should be punished right there, and remains there and not come to Lagos to start telling them in Lagos that he does not know the reason why he was arrested. Therefore, if we are to talk about the aspects of CEMA that we want, we will be taking a whole day; therefore I will expect the CEMA to be totally reviewed.
Emeka Enwelu (Stakeholder)
As far as CEMA is concerned , I don’t think it is a welcome development, it is not advisable or recommendable by we freight forwarders, because generally CEMA is there for us as a guide but the way it is at the moment is that the benchmark issue is what prompted the CEMA amendment and the CG has a big blame for it, that is not what we want him to do, he should start by amending the situations in the port firstly, because the problem which we are facing at the moment is the alert issue, therefore it is a wrong directive. Moreover a minister who knows what he is doing would not want to pass such an amendment into law.
Frank Ukor (President, AREFF)
The issue that concerns us is the renewal of licenses, we were all licensed by Customs as revenue generators to the government to act as agents to customs although customs denied and said that we are not their agents that we are just licensed to work for the government. In 2007, the Federal Government came with an Act that established CRFFN and there is a provision in that Act that says that before any other agency of government would register or renew any license of any person, it must in addition and all round requirements for that require a certificate from CRFFN, that is the position of the Act, and that is the area which is our priority, Customs is not comfortable with that and that is why they are making all those noises about the provision, customs is not happy that one of the condition for the registration should be that you have to register with the council because a lot of rumour is making the rounds, that a lot of customs officers have licenses, and because they are serving officers, they cannot register with the council that is why they are fighting, so that CRFFN does not see the light of the day, it is the act of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and there is nothing anyone can do about it, CEMA should be on its own.
Sir Osita Patrick (President, SNFFIEC)
There are many sections that ought to be removed from the Customs and Excise Management Act, some need to be reviewed; while some are obsolete, they don’t need to come in at all, while some need to be removed. Firstly, customs power as regards auction sales, customs should not be auctioning containers of cargo, there should be a creation of an Independent Commission or Council within the federal ministry of finance that will handle it. And concerning this renewal of licenses, they need to remove the hand of customs from it, it shouldn’t be customs licensed agents anymore, but freight forwarding license.
Aare Sanni Shittu (Deputy Chairman, Board of Trustees, ANLCA)
What we want is the enforcement of the law as it affects CEMA, customs should be allowed therefore to do their job since that is was what they have been trained to do and that is why they should be in charge.
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