The Acting National President of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANCLA), Dr. Kayode Farinto has called on the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency declare a state of emergency in the maritime sector or suspend Ease of Doing Business policy at the nation’s seaport and land borders.
In a press statement issued by Dr. Farinto at the National Secretariat of ANCLA in Lagos at the weekend, he gave reasons for calling for the state of emergency to include dilapidated infrastructures and the extortion by agents of the Nigeria Customs Service.
He said, “In view of the recent developments at the seaports and land borders vis-a-vis dilapidated infrastructures at the ports like roads, non-existence of multi-modal transport and the multiple check points by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and various extortion by the Maritime Police, other government agencies are not complying with executive order”.
Speaking on behalf of ANCLA members, Dr. Farinto said, “Failure of NCS to conform to the implementation of ease of doing business, double examination on containers, extortion of ANCLA members, Customs release and arrest and rearrests of containers and above all, activities of FOU to query consignment base on low cargo and low value”.
Dr. Kayode who is also the Managing Director of Wealthy Honey Investment Nigeria Limited was very furious about the present state of the seaports and the land borders.
He noted that with the inconsistency of the Federal Government policy and implementation, coupled with the fact that shipping companies and terminal operators have refuse to implement, the federal government’s ease of doing business order would be very difficult for Nigeria as a country to get it right.
While lamenting the sufferings, serious extortion by NCS and maritime police as it concerns his members in the maritime sector he said, “The Controller General of Nigerian Customs Service, Hameed Ali is not bigger than Nigeria, he cannot continue to flout the executive order and actions is yet to be taken, the Inspector General of Police should come to the port and see how the maritime police has left their statutory functions and now obtain manifest from shipping companies and be stopping containers and call agents for settlement in which one hundred and fifty thousand is being paid per containers”.
“We hereby call for state of emergency or better still, suspension of the Ease of Doing Business policy in the maritime sector because it is not working. Ministries, Directorates and Agencies (MDA’s) behave to be bigger than the Federal Government they are working for and also flouting orders given by Nigerian Ports Authority with impunity and no sanctions meted to them. Are they now bigger than the country?” he asked rhetorically.
He continued, “We don’t need to pretend that there is total systems collapse in the maritime industry. Hence the FG should stop deceiving Nigerians and stop shouting about Ease of doing business because it has been abuse”.
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