Following the insinuation made by the founder of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr. Boniface Aniebonam to the effect that the Nigeria Customs Service did not authorize the Direct Trader Input (DTI) training carried on by the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), the association has described Aniebonam’s outburst as pulling its legs.
The National President of ANLCA, Prince Olayiwola Shittu who made this known in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos disclosed that so many NAGAFF members sent their staff to participate in the said DTI training held at the ANLCA Secretariat.
Shittu while showing our correspondent a copy of the Certificate to be issued to the Participants to the training observed that the training was carried out in collaboration with the Nigeria Customs Service Headquarters which directed all the Assistant Comptroller-Generals of Customs in different zones to provide logistics for the trainings.
He pointed out that the ongoing training was aimed at protecting the licenses of members whose passwords were frequently stolen in an attempt to make input through the commercial DTIs adding that with the training, licensed customs agents would be well equipped on how to run the DTI in their personal offices with their password allotted to every one of them by customs authority.
According to him,” It is because he doesn’t have corporate licensed members. All membership of NAGAFF is individual with individuals who have their companies. I am not saying they don’t have companies, even as a freight forwarder you can have company.
“What we are doing is protecting our members. For more than four years, we have been agitating for issuance of passwords to protect our licenses, what else do you think we can do? Somebody has been agitating for something for four years and then finally, what we are looking for is here, won’t we protect it?
“We are not saying that we are getting PhD from customs because (showing a copy of the certificate) this is the sample of the Certificate we will be issuing. Is it not in collaboration with the Nigerian Customs Service? The man who is in-charge of DTI for the whole zone, is that not his signature that will come in there? Did we not call it certificate of Participation? Do we say this is a Degree? And let me also inform you that they are at liberty to approach customs but what we are saying is we cannot create job for everybody in the maritime industry because that is what they are agitating for since their membership is individual.
“Do you know that our resource person is not even a customs officer but Abuja told the ACGs, as I am talking to you now, if I call our Chairman Board in Port-Harcourt, he is meeting with the ACG in the East. As at today, from the information I have, Kano with the assistance of the ACG there are having this DTI training for our members because we know the importance.
“So, that customs did not sanction this, no, that is pulling our legs. There are so many NAGAFF members, I won’t mention their names, who have sent people here to participate and we didn’t lock the door against them because we believe that today you are in NAGAFF, tomorrow you can come to ANLCA but protect the license because some of these things we are doing today is not just for ANLCA members but for anybody who has the opportunity. If in the future something is going to be beneficial to licensed customs agents, like this one we are talking about the CRFFN, if they are paying that 35% to the declarants, would it not affect the licensed customs agents in AREFFN or wherever? Would they say it is for ANLCA members alone? No! it is not possible”.
Asked if customs was going ahead to close down the commercial DTIs as it earlier said after the training, Shittu stated,” I am not going to speak for the customs but I know we have agitated and they have said everybody should be ready to collect their password. Whatever the customs do with cybercafés is not the issue, what we wanted is protection for my own license so that somebody does not go to the cybercafés and input my data, something I don’t know about. So, with my DTI on my system, no system can put my name, that system that has my password, it is only my company that can use it”.
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