Dr Frank Ukor has fought ceaselessly to ensure that the association he formed is allowed a place in the Nigerian freight forwarding family. He is pushing-in gradually to entrench the Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (AREFFN) and to get it registered by the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria. In this interview, he spoke about his challenges as the president of AREFFN and other sundry issues.
What is the official position of AREFFN on benchmark?
Dr Frank Ukor has fought ceaselessly to ensure that the association he formed is allowed a place in the Nigerian freight forwarding family. He is pushing-in gradually to entrench the Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (AREFFN) and to get it registered by the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria. In this interview, he spoke about his challenges as the president of AREFFN and other sundry issues.
What is the official position of AREFFN on benchmark?
The Nigerian Custom Service made a mistake from the beginning of the whole issue, they categorized every import that comes into this country based on their benchmark, they determined their own price and value and not the value of the goods and this is where they made a mistake. Most of the West African countries depend on this benchmark, they did it and they succeeded, but all the goods that come into their country that are valued for foreign exchange did not come under benchmark, the ones that sourced money from autonomous markets have benchmark, it could have worked in Nigeria if customs had categorized them into two. We know that there are two categories of import in this country, we have goods that are valid for foreign exchange and we have those that are not valid for foreign exchange, the ones that are valid for foreign exchange are goods that come in with letters of credit, that money is sourced from the forex market and the banks usually pay back their money so they should not have been tagged for benchmark, but all the ones from the autonomous market that are not valued for foreign exchange, these are the ones that do not like declaring the actual thing so that they will be able to sell, and even the ones that have the benchmark should have been made reasonable, it should not be too high, it should have a human face, but the Customs made it so high which made it impossible. The position of AREFF on the benchmark is that, it is not a good thing at all because the people that bring in these goods are going to leave their goods in the port because the value you put on it is so high that they won’t be able to meet up, if they should pay it, they won’t be able to sell, and this is why the ports are dry, the ships have been turned to other neighbouring countries, if you go to the borders too there is no work, everywhere is grounded right now, the whole economy is grounded because of the benchmark thing. It was a fundamental mistake that the Custom made, I don’t know how anybody can remedy the situation right now, but I think we should just watch it for about three months and see if we can bounce back, but the thing is that this benchmark has gone and let nobody talk about it again because it was an ill wind.
Do you think the Nigeria Customs N1trillion target is achievable?
If you look at what is happening now you will know if it is achievable or not, last year, the Customs exceeded their target and this year it was increased, I don’t know if it was the government that offered them the figure or they offered that they can make that much, because the information we gathered is that they were given a certain target, but they promised to surpass it, so they gave themselves N1.2trillion, but we know that when they achieve it, majority of Nigerians are suffering because it is Nigerians that use these goods, if you force the importers to pay the duty, it is not the importer that suffers, it is not the clearing agent that will suffer, it is Nigerians and consumers of these goods that will suffer, so as it is now, I don’t think they can achieve that N1.2trillion target, because many people have abandoned their goods.
But with the removal of benchmark, things ought to have gone back to their normal way?
Everybody is being careful right now; nobody wants to be used as a scapegoat and this is why everybody is trying to wait and see, and with the threat that Customs is issuing that if you bring in the goods and there is any discrepancy, they will seize it, will this make matters good or worse? I think the best thing should have been that if there is any discrepancy, then Customs should raise a debit note and penalize the person to pay additional duty, this is better instead of outright seizure, after which they will end up giving peanuts to government in order to dash out these containers to their friends and cronies, it is not doing the country any good, so instead of seizing goods, let them penalize the person by raising a debit note.
Has there been any case of outright seizure since the cancellation of the benchmark?
Well, we have not seen because nobody has come to report to us that they seized their cargo, none of my members have reported, normally it is when they give us such reports that we now take it up and act on it, but we have not heard of any.
With the recent arrest of Mr Lucky Amiwero, do you believe the Customs is trying to gag freight forwarders?
My own personal opinion is that what the Customs did was trying to gag all freight forwarders so that nobody will be able to talk again, if you see anything you won’t talk because you will be afraid that when you say anything they will arrest you, is it the duty of the Customs to arrest? Somebody wrote a petition against you and you are the one that is arresting him, who is ever a judge in his own case? Because to me this is like one being a judge in his own case, if they feel that Lucky has done something wrong they should have asked the police to arrest him, but it is not Customs that should prosecute him, now where is the justice? What it means now is that I will be very much afraid to write a petition, we even wrote some that we wanted to send to them, but we became afraid when they said this thing. The case is still in court, so we cannot talk about it.
What is the present status of your accreditation with the CRFFN?
They have come to check our facilities on the 19th of April 2012, they were here to inspect our facilities and we are still waiting for their report.
Are you optimistic that AREFFN will be given a pass mark?
I have always said it from the word go that we have met the criteria because we are registered by the corporate affairs commission which is one of the required conditions, this one that the council is putting in place is to make it difficult for one. In Nigeria, there are only five associations that have applied, in Ghana there are 26, in the USA they are about 120 associations that are registered, but in Nigeria there are just five, yet some people will go to press and say that it is only two associations that the Council should deal with, as if Nigeria with about 160million people will only have two associations, when we talk about these associations, it is not only limited to officers that are here, it goes round to every other person, as I am in this association today, every other person that comes after me belongs to this association and so on. So if you look at it, two associations is just too small, even 10 associations are not enough, so the CRFFN should register more associations; not only two or five.
What is your assessment of the performance of the presidential monitoring committee on port reforms?
They have called us for a meeting once, we held a meeting with them and they told us what they intend to achieve. I must be very frank with you that they have a very good idea but they still live in 23rd century Nigeria and not 21st century which we are, what they intend to do is nice but it will take us time to get to that place, they want to imitate America but not minding when America came into existence. Nigeria will definitely get there but not by frog jumping, we will go to it gradually, but if they want us to try the system they wanted, it will be worse than what is happening with the benchmark.
The committee had earlier issued a directive to truck drivers but it had fallen on deaf ears
I don’t know if the shipping companies have holding bays where these containers can stay, but one of the letters we wrote to the National Assembly and the Minister of transport about the gridlock on the expressway, some of them are already being put in place, we said that government can build ports where we can put empty containers, when a truck moves any container from here, after discharging the containers, it takes the empty straight back to the place where it will be offloaded, when the shipping companies want to move the containers they can use lighter vessels that can access the place, bring in the and they load them, if they do this the traffic will come down, the best thing is to get the containers out of the ports to another port far away from here, it could be built along Ijegun bridge, so that when the trucks drop the container, from there the shipping company can now use smaller vessels to take it back to the port, this was the idea I gave them, the other alternative will be to find a way to offload these goods in the ports, after this you bring in sided trucks, offload the goods inside the trucks and the container will remain at the port, the sided truck moves the goods to the warehouse and the truck does not come back to the port.
And do you think this can work?
I have been in Cotonou for a very long time and this is what happens over there, they move the goods that are for their country out in a container, the ones that are going outside their country they offload them and put them in sided trucks and move them to the borders, there is nothing that is impossible, you cannot condemn a system until you have tried it, they can try it and see if it will work, they might discover that it will be the best alternative to all these problems that we are having in the port today.
How can the government control the influx of people into our ports?
If the government creates jobs, people will not be trooping into the ports, they will go to their various jobs where they earn a living, it is because people do not have a job and that is why they go there and see if they can get one or two things to eat and keep body and soul together. If government creates jobs today, you will not see people there again, what you see at the port is as a result of lack of jobs. On the other hand, government has started taking some actions through the CRFFN, the CRFFN has registered people now and said that these are the people that have been registered to operate, if they start their enforcement, you will see that a lot of people here will not be around, because when they arrest one or two people and throw them into jail, the others will disappear, but what we are asking the CRFFN is that since they have done their induction, let them come out with their identification cards so that those who have no business at the port will not be there. The other day, the TICT came up and said that anybody that does not have terminal entry permit will not be allowed access into their terminal; it is a good thing that they are being security-conscious, but what if the other terminals and the shipping companies do the same? It then means that every agent must have up to 30 terminal permits to access the port, so I said it is not necessary, if the CRFFN should issue those that are registered at the port with identity cards, then they can use it to enter the ports and there won’t be need for any other person to ask for any identity card again.
It seems your association is very docile compared to others, what is going on?
We don’t believe in noise-making, we don’t believe in going to the press all the time to talk, as we are here, people that are in the field come in and give us information, like I told you about the problem with TICT, we followed it up and resolved it, we talked about step down of containers, each one we do we don’t like to make noise, I will not hide it but to tell you that we don’t have the money because we are not getting any money from anywhere; ANLCA, NAGAFF and Council of managing directors are all getting money from Tin Can, but they have blocked us from getting anything, so we don’t have the money to make so much noise, but we are doing the ones that we can.
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