A group, Maritime Advocacy and Action Group (MAAG) has said that it was not aware of the alleged withdrawal of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) as announced in a section of the media.
The National Coordinator of MAAG, Alhassan Dantata said in a telephone interview with Primetime Reporters that the body was yet to receive a letter from ANLCA informing them of its withdrawal adding that he had heard the information from the grapevine.
Dantata disclosed that at the inception of the group which he said was aimed at collective bargaining with the Federal government and its agencies on the issues affecting the maritime sector, the founding associations signed an agreement on the mode of withdrawal of membership by any member association.
He therefore stated that he would not comment on the matter until the group was communicated to by ANLCA in which case he would now inform the press on their position on the matter.
“When MAAG was formed, there was a document signed, don’t forget, everybody signed and everybody knows that. So, we are hearing it through the press and like you are a press man, you are calling me, we cannot make any comment unless we have a document “.
“If ANLCA now wants to leave, the thing we are waiting for is for a letter from the ANLCA Secretariat informing our Secretariat. I am just a Coordinator, I coordinate, I don’t do anything beyond that apart from getting to the government and other people in the Ministry that can add value to what we feel should be the way forward”.
“But having said that, even if I can write, I will just call a meeting of MAAG and present that letter and say this is the letter, then now, the other associations will now decide on whether to accept it or to write another letter to ANLCA, I don’t Know”, Dantata said.
On the allegation that ANLCA was leaving because it was not being carried along in the decisions making process of the group, the MAAG National Coordinator informed that the group always sent out notice of its meeting to member association and that ANLCA was represented in all the meetings the group have had in the past where decisions were jointly taken except the last one held on the 7th of October, 2014 ANLCA’s National President, Prince Olayiwola Shittu was abroad.
According to him,” now, the normal way we do thing is that there is a representative that he has appointed in writing to MAAG to represent him. Initially, he had appointed someone else but a letter came later on that that person was not to represent him, that there was another person who he documented to represent him”.
“So, if they were not informed, it is not the fault of the body, it is the fault of their non representation by not informing the person that they documented to be at the meeting and that is the only meeting that they were not represented. The last meeting before that, Alhaji Shittu himself was there”.
ANLCA had earlier announced its withdrawal from MAAG citing the attitude of the National Coordinator to take decisions on behalf of the association without recourse to member associations saying, “We can no longer be a part of such arrangements where things are done with impunity and without regards to the associations that made up the group. We will not subject ANLCA to such ridicule”.
