…Says announcement misleading
The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has faulted a paid public announcement by the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) describing the announcement as misleading and an abuse of privilege.
ANLCA had on Wednesday issued an announcement on a Radio programme informing the freight forwarders and the general public that henceforth, the ongoing training programme by the Nigeria Customs service at its National Secretariat was a prerequisite for the renewal of licenses by the Nigeria customs Service.
However, in a press release issued on Wednesday by the National Protocol/Head of Special Duties NAGAFF, Mr. Vincent Nnogu and made available to Primetime Reporters, NAGAFF argued that although the National Secretariat of ANLCA bore the name of the present Comptroller-General of Custom as Inde Dikko House, it had not officially confer on ANLCA’s Secretariat as enlisted or extended training College of the Nigeria customs Service.
It pointed out that the ongoing training at the ANLCA’s Secretariat was an in-house training programme adding that a national tutored training programme of the Service was expected to be observed and undertaken at different Customs training Colleges nationwide even as it said that Customs Agency Legislation was not limited to Lagos operations alone.
“The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) by our informed position is aware that Nigeria Customs administration is one that thrives and being optimally administered via official circulars, legal notices and memos, therefore, it Is pertinent to state here that, there is no existing memo conferring on ANLCA or its National secretariat the status as a “training centre” for certification purposes, issued there from nor determined by the License inspection Department of the Service”.
“It has become necessary to caution that there is no where it has ever become administrative for a professional association to assume position of the mouth piece of any government agency how much more a critical stakeholder in the international supply chain like the Nigeria Customs Service”, the release partly read.
NAGAFF there advised ANLCA not to abuse the good gestures and intents of the Comptroller-General of Customs where such were reduced to a mere instrument of industry monopoly and a tool to representing a “yaoman’s job”.
It opined that the integrity of the service and that of the Comptroller-General of Customs must not be openly dragged into association manipulation and intrigues so as not to whittle down its unbiased umpire posture as enshrined in its status books.
