Dr. Boniface Okechukwu Aniebonam is the founder of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders. In this interview with OLUYINKA ONIGBINDE, he bares his mind on issues bordering the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria. Excerpts.
Clearing agents and freight forwarders have been complaining about police interference in cargo clearance. What is your take on this?
The police are trained personnel and you don’t know the source of their information. They are statutorily responsible and you know what the police is all about. Even a civilian has the power of arrest, some of these complaints will not get us anything other than for us to learn to do the correct thing. As long as we don’t do the correct thing, all these issues will continually come to bare. The main issue is about making genuine declaration for custom purpose.When you do this, let’s see how the police or any other agency of the government can stop your cargo. If they stop you, by the time they finish what they are investigating, they will see that nothing was found, and by the time they do it four times and nothing was found, they would be reluctant to stop you again. But behold, each time they intercept a container, I am sure you know that something contrary is found, this is why I told you that there is a system collapse, the corruption is quite high in the port and this is exactly the situation on ground.
As a result of this interference, sister association like the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents has called for the merger of the maritime police and port police. Do you agree with this idea?
I have been reading some articles about ANLCA complaining about the police and I felt that some of us speak from a disadvantaged position. When you don’t have information or you don’t moderate what you say, you can aggravate serious issues. To me, if they are not careful, they will provoke further actions because you don’t go to equity without having a clean hand. If the police have intelligence information, they will go ahead and if something incriminating is found, they will send you to the appropriate authorities.We all know that we can place hands on somebody and tell him he is under arrest and hand him over to the appropriate authorities when you find him doing something to the contrary.
What I thought the associations should be doing is to do more in letting our people know that they need to do the right thing and this would give us more impetus to speak on their behalf. You have the right of arresting somebody when you see him acting contrary to the fact, this is one thing you can get from me, it is not about blackmail or mudslinging, you cannot intimidate the government. The expectation on the part of NAGAFF is to continuously educate our people on the need to respect the rules of engagement and do the right thing. For instance, you are talking about the Standards Organisation of Nigeria and the SONCAP regulations, do you know the damage that substandard products, fake and adulterated products are doing to the economy of this country and the life of Nigerians? All these anomalies are being committed all in the name of business.
What do you think is the solution to the current challenge of moving overtime cargoes out of the port, especially in Apapa Command?
First of all we have to look at the basics.What does the law say, you can only get a good society when everyone obeys the rule of law and enforcement of existing regulations.So, the statement by the PRO of Apapa Customs does not hold any water as far as I am concerned. Section 31 of the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA) as amended in 2004 is quite clear.It talks about the time of cargoes and it is the law, laws are meant to be obeyed and this is how you get a good society, abinitio, if you look at section 13 of the Customs law, you would see the responsibilities of the terminal operators then as the Nigerian Ports Authority, to enhance the optimal performance of the operations in the customs port. I will also take you to section 11 where it talks about obstruction of lawful detail of an officer.The issue now is the capacity and the political will of the Customs to enforce regulations.This is main thing we should be looking at now, but I guess from my vantage position that there is more to it than meets the eye and this has to do with corruption. What we are beginning to see now is that the new Controller of Apapa Port is beginning to look at the law.This is the only time we can get it done. I am happy when he raised the matter of overtime cargoes, who is responsible to move the containers? It is the terminal operators that will transfer overtime containers to the outer terminals once the dwell time is over. But then again, Customs still have a role to play by giving them the authorization to prepare the uncleared cargo list.Once this is done, the Customs give the approval and probably provide escort for such containers to be taken to Ikorodu or any other place that Customs have designated.
On the issue of cost, the port is not a dwelling place where you can warehouse your cargo. So, once the time has lapsed, directive would be issued immediately for the cargo to be moved.Whatever it costs the terminal operator to move overtime cargoes would be borne by the importer, and when terminal operators refused to do what they are supposed to do, it means that the cargo is being warehoused constructively inside the port and what should be attracting is just the rent and not demurrage.
What is the role of Nigeria Ports Authority in all of these?
NPA, technically, is a regulatory agency as far as the concession is in place. The major role of NPA has been given to NPA, especially port operations. So, NPA still has a role, I can tell you that the MD of NPA is in tandem with these things I have told you. But there is something somewhere that is not too clear and it is not far from corruption.
Do you think that the creation of one-stop-shop would bring an end to alerts and other trade disputes in the sector?
One-stop-shop is still a process of trade facilitation and ease of doing business. Sometimes, some of these things are put on paper as a policy but the implementation is always a problem. We all know that our problem is implementation and enforcement of regulations. If you have a consignment in any of the ports, you would be seeing various alerts like CIU alert, valuation alert, headquarters alert, CGC alert, SON alert, NAFDAC alert and on and on.It is limitless, police alert and at the end of the day, all these alerts are vacated.If you get down to Federal Operations Unit and see the second examination when cargoes are intercepted, you would be wondering whether all these alerts were not there before.We all know it is wrong, but it is all about the human elements.To me, leadership comes to play, we need a strong leader that can unbundle all these problems, there is nothing difficult in it, when some of us point out these anomalies, we tend to attract enmity on ourselves.It is unfortunate that we keep talking about it.The world is a global village, there is a system collapse in the port as far as operations is concerned.
Let’s talk about the recent reshuffle of the area controllers by the Comptroller General of Customs. Are you satisfied with it?
It is the prerogative of the Comptroller General of Customs to deploy his officers, and to the best of my knowledge, they look at it from the aspect of merit, but then, some sections of the country is complaining. For instance, the Igbos are complaining that there has not been opportunity for any of them to be given a strategic place to command like other officers from the North and the South West, I think this should be addressed in line with the Federal Character.Like I said, it is the prerogative of the Comptroller General of Customs because whoever is working under the Customs platform is doing so under his authority.So, it is left for him to carry everybody along because if you talk about merit, in every region, we have people that have that kind of merit.
Recently, you gave a hint about your intention to step aside from association.Who are you handing over to?
I would be exiting the association’s politics because by next year, it would be over 20 years that I have been on this, talking on one thing or the other. So, I need to rest. The succession in NAGAFF is quite understood by the public and this is what we have agreed upon, the democratization in NAGAFF is a continuous process, the organogram of NAGAFF started from me. As the first president of NAGAFF, I groomed Usman Sanusi; Usman groomed Eugene Nweke; Eugene groomed Adeyemo who later groomed Increase Uche. Now, someone else is following Uche. Until we finally get to that level of election where we can elect our officers. But I hope to do that before I leave by next year.
Is it possible to have a core practitioner as the chairman of the council rather than one of the government appointees?
That area you are going is not too critical or important. It is not the leader that does everything, but like I said, we need to follow the law.What does the law say, it is very clear that only elected member should be the chairman of the council, but laws are made for man and not man for the law. There are lots you get from leadership, it is not only about the technical aspect.There are also political angle of leadership.For instance, the CRFFN might have a problem that needed political solution. So, whoever is there might not have the technical angle but he has the political solution. So, we need to balance it. I have been hearing the utterances of people here and there, but when we get there, we would cross the bridge.
