The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has described as an unhealthy development, the appointment of Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd.) as the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service Customs (NCS).
The National Publicity Secretary of ANLCA, Dr. Kayode Farinto who disclosed this while reacting to the temporary closure of the Tincan Island and PTML customs commands during the visit of Ali to the commands on Monday said with the appointment of the CGC who had his background in the Military, one should expect anything that could come out of the service to be wrong.
Farinto who also described Col. Ali (Rtd.) as a square peg in a round noting that if he were to be a proper customs officer, he would know what to do even as he stated lamented the inability of the CGC to meet with the stakeholders during the visit.
According to him,” A situation where a retired Colonel who does not even have customs background is being put in place as the Comptroller-General of Customs is an unhealthy development. So, you expect that anything that could come out of that place to be wrong. You have a square peg in a round hole. If the man were to be a proper customs officer, he knows what to do. Of course he knows that he needs the stakeholders, can he do it alone?
“We are the ones that generated this revenue, what they (customs) do is to midwife whatever we generate but it is unfortunate that because of his background, he does not know what it takes to be and unfortunately, those people who call themselves the management team surrounding him are jittery, they are afraid of him to even tell him the truth”.
While further describing the closure of the two commands against the agents during the visit as unhealthy and something he was not happy about, he blamed the leadership of the various associations for their inability to be united and speak with one voice adding that the development wouldn’t have been the case if the leadership had not been fragmented.
“If we have leaders as in stakeholders who know their onion, it will not happen because we have this one is for Apollos, this one is for Paul, the man capitalized on that. The freight forwarders wanting to do the job of customs licensed agents, freight forwarding associations wanting to do the job of licensed Customs agents associations, what do you expect? It is an unhealthy development and it is not good for our economy but it is unfortunate that that has happened.
“Of course he (Ali) has his blame, he is a civil servant. How can you cripple the economy because you are visiting an area? But because of the fact that the leadership of the various units there is not organized, that was why it could happen.
“It is even as bad as saying that the man refused to see stakeholders. It has never happened in the history of this industry where a Comptroller-General of Customs will visit and he refused to see the stakeholders. We are not in a Military zone for crying out loud and we are not in the Military era, even if he has a Military background, he should strip himself of all that. It is unfortunate that this is happening”.
The NPS related that during the regime of the former Comptroller-General, Dr. Abdullahi Dikko Inde, whenever he visited Lagos, his first engagement would be to meet with stakeholders adding that the last time he visited Lagos before his resignation, he spent between four and five hours with the stakeholders where a lot of challenges were raised by them and solutions proffered to those challenges by the out gone CGC.
On the way out of this bitter experience, he said,” The way out is prayer so that God will touch the heart of Mr. President to let him bring back the proper officer for the office of the Comptroller-General of Customs”.
Reacting in a telephone interview, the National Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Customs Service, Mr. Wale Adeniyi stated that the CGC spent only about 30 minutes at both the PTML and Five Star Logistics terminals adding that the meeting he held with the terminal operators lasted for only about one hour wondering how that could brought the activities of the two commands to a standstill.
“In PTML and Five Star logistics, he spent only about 30 minutes and the meeting he held with the operators was held in Tincan, it was also for about one hour. So, don’t see how that will put anything to a standstill. He didn’t get there until around 2.o’clock in the afternoon, he had other engagements.
So, I am sure there must have been some other reasons if things were on standstill. We saw agents; they were doing their jobs in the terminals that we visited. We saw them pushing cars out and so, I think you got that information wrong”, he said.
When reminded that the agents our correspondent met at the gates of the two customs commands were complaining that they were shut out since morning, he added,” Okay, you have their complains, I have given you our perspective, the choice is yours, the interpretation is yours and yours”.
The customs spokesman disclosed that the Comptroller-General did not meet with freight forwarders and some other stakeholders because there was no plan for him to meet with them adding that they had to plan it and schedule it before that could happen.
“He wouldn’t just meet because people were there; there were people everywhere we went. He wouldn’t just begin to meet with everybody that lined up there. He did not, we fixed some specific meetings based on the issue he came to address”, he added.
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