It was a harvest of praises yesterday at the Tincan Island Ports Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) as the Customs Area Controller of the command, Comptroller Yusuf Bashar hands over the baton of leadership of the command to a new Controller, Comptroller Musa M.B.A.
The hand over was coming barely a week after the command under the leadership of Comptroller Bashar received a Certificate of Merit from the World Customs Organization (WCO) for exceptional service at the just concluded 2018 International Customs Day celebration in Abuja.
Stakeholders ranging from the terminal operators, freight forwarders, security agencies, the media and the officers of the command all spoke glowingly of a man who within his two years and few months stay at the command had transformed Tincan to a benchmark command through meticulous application of best practice and due diligence to duty.
While thanking God for what he used Bashar to achieve for the service and the nation at large at the command, the stakeholders wished him well in his new appointment even as they were sure that he would replicate his achievements in Tincan and bring his wealth of experience to bear in his new assignment.
Earlier in his valedictory speech, the outgoing CAC, Comptroller Yusuf recalled that in his two years at Tincan, the command was able to collect close to N600 billion, urging the incoming Controller to set his eyes on revenue collection, security and trade facilitation as they were at the heart of customs obligations to the nation.
Bashar further informed the new CAC that the command now boasts of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre which he said had trained about 1,200 stakeholders including Customs officers, clearing agents, journalists among others tasking him not to allow the centre to die.
In his words,” In the course our discussion as well, I said we have an ICT Centre which we must never allow to die. We do a lot of trainings there and we have trained so many people, so far a thousand, two hundred people were there as at yesterday, I did not include those that are being trained today. But that place is for all us because we train customs, we train importers, we train agents and all the maritime users. The only people we are yet to train are the touts because they don’t have that qualification to be there”.
He also advised him to show compassion when dealing with people most especially the agent community as according to him, “because the world best practices say, they are not at the point of parking but they are importers’ representatives”.
Bashar however described Comptroller Musa as a man with loads of experience to carry on with the reforms he had brought to bear in the command even as he said that the new Controller is a man that loves near perfection and quality.
He added that the CAC was a member of the tact team with who he worked tirelessly alongside one other at the headquarters to fashion out what is today known as the customs electronic payment and the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR).
“Musa is full of capacity, I want you to open your brain and let people tap from it, and it will be very useful. Musa has assisted many to get employment in life and I know he will not jail people for no just course. I will advise the incoming Controller as well that terminal operators are the custodians of the customs containers, they do not know what is inside the container neither were they permitted by the law to open the container without customs express authorization. So, when we discover something inside the container, you can get an advice from our legal team. So, Musa, in whatever circumstances, you have a legal adviser who will be ready to assist so that you will not say sorry”, he admonished.
He therefore thanked the men and officers of the command, the terminal operators, the licensed customs agents, the importers, the media and indeed everyone who had contributed in one way or the other to the successes he had achieved in the command in his over two years stay in Tincan and urged them to extend that same hands of fellowship to the incoming Area Controller.
“Tincan belongs to each and every one of us and that was why that award was dedicated to everyone in Tincan and I pray that by next year, we will have a bigger one and Musa will go and receive it on our behalf. But honestly, I cannot thank everybody enough, I felt so honoured and I am feeling so fulfilled to leave Tincan the way it is to go for another challenge so that I will see it and conquer it. We have conquered Tincan for good; people will hear Tincan and say Bash was there, that is good news. So, I am very fulfilled that this place needed to be transformed and we were able to transform it. My prayer is may Tincan soar higher and higher, may God give the incoming Area Controller the wisdom, the courage, the perseverance to tamper justice with mercy where there is need”, Bashar prayed.
Responding, the incoming Customs Area Controller, Comptroller Musa M.B.A acknowledged that he was challenged by the encomiums showered by the stakeholders on the outgoing CAC and promised that he would do his very best to “at least match his achievements by continuing from where he stopped”.
He promised to facilitate trade and to run an open door policy even as he sought the cooperation of the stakeholders in the task of building a command that everybody would be proud of adding that he intends to excel in the command.
Photo: The outgoing Controller, Comptroller Yusuf Bashar and the incoming Controller, Musa M.B.A in a group photograph with the terminal operators shortly after handover ceremony at the Tincan Island Port command in Lagos yesterday.
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