Alhaji Abdulazeez Babatunde Mukaila is the immediate past Sole Administrator and currently, the Chairman, International Relations Committee of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA. In this interview with our correspondent, he spoke extensively on the recent implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA in Nigeria, the Nigerian freight forwarders preparedness to actively participate in the continent-wide trade and the expected roles for the Nigeria Customs Service in all of these. Excerpts;
Just recently, Nigeria began implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA in the country with an inaugural shipment under the Guided Trade Initiative, GTI, now that the Nigeria Customs Service which is your collaborator is the Designated Competent Authority responsible for issuing Certificate Of Origin, where is the place of the freight forwarders in all this?
The freight forwarders should be the driver of this AfCFTA but the fact still remains that I won’t say the freight forwarders are not ready, I am going to say the system is not ready. Forget about the funfair. The pertinent question which you have just answered in your opening question is who issue the Certificate of Origin?
As we speak, NACCIMA is still issuing Certificate Of Origin. In your opening question, you said that Customs is the Designated Authority but customs is not ready. In a very simple layman’s understanding, what is AfCFTA? AfCFTA means borderless, there shouldn’t be customs control in a very stringent measure about borders, it means a single market. It means I can move cargo from Nigeria to Egypt and fly down as a freight forwarder to clear it out of their port. Now, do you think that is possible in the Nigerian ports with all the networks of unnecessary bottlenecks and human contact elements?
I have seen customs tout about AEO – Authorized Economic Operators, are they willing to trust a Nigerian manufacturer and give them that access as a mark of compliance over the years? The fact remains that you cannot be pursuing revenue target and be talking about AfCFTA and talking about AEO and be talking about Advanced Ruling. These are tools that are very much necessary globally to make life very easy to shippers and for those that are willing to comply.
Where are the channels that customs as lead agent has placed on the table for those that wants to comply and stringent punishment for those that refused to comply? The whole thing is a gamut of paparazzi, that’s all I can say about it.
AfCFTA should have been a very big opportunity now that we even Lekki Deep Seaport, a very big one for Nigeria because of our size and contributions. I want to hope that at the appropriate time, the government will see the importance of freight forwarders in these dynamics.
The Comptroller General of Customs is always in the news, we have made N1 trillion in Apapa in six months, Apapa is celebrating N19 billion in a day and I ask, who is dropping that billion? Until customs as a lead agent appreciate the efforts of the freight forwarders and see us as partners in progress… The CGC has just marked a year in office, I have not seen a single training he has conducted to educate the people going to different banks, mobilizing that fund. What are they doing? We paid, they got an alert and populate it and say we have collected this. It’s like somebody transferring money to your account and you came out to say you have made ten thousand naira today. Somebody transferred the money to your account and you have disregarded that person or those group of professionals that does that.
In the AfCFTA launch, with all the gamut of personalities, the ten companies that are moving their goods to Kenya and wherever, a freight forwarder made that happen. Where are the freight forwarders in that meeting to tell the Ministers their own story? What they passed through to pull that through, they were missing. But the exporters were showcased, the owners of the goods were showcased at the event. But the professionals that facilitated the movement, the last man standing, the last pole, they were missing and this government kept thinking it’s going to continue that way? I can tell you that it’s not going to continue that way very soon because it’s now very clear to us that nobody is coming to save us.
If you hope the government will think in a way and manner that will make our profession, this is a very good profession globally, if it practiced well but target at the right hand, trade facilitation at the left hand. It doesn’t work like that. The government of the day wants target, no doubt, they want revenue to push whatever programme they have. If you want to get the money, get it but facilitate trade. You facilitate trade, get as much as you can as customs, for those that are willing to comply, make life easy for them and those that want to cut corners, give them maximum punishment.
As a way of encouragement, populate your system, query your system and look at the companies who with all the frustrating protocols have been consistent, uplift them by way of incentives so that the non-compliant companies would emulate them. When the CGC came to Lagos for a programme, I happened to be a panelist and I said there are trade tools you can use to incentivize the shipper so that those that are non compliant will say, ah! we started together with AYZ company, look at them, customs has allowed them to have easy access because, then randomly, you still cater for those incentivized, but no!
It’s all about you are making the money, no training for the Licensed Customs Agents. It is compulsory under the WCO articles that customs brokers who are regulated under the private sector agreement must have a say in what the customs authority of their country is doing. But I don’t see that happening here…
But do you see AfCFTA succeeding without a freight forwarder playing a prominent role?
It is not possible for AfCFTA to succeed without a freight forwarder playing a prominent role AfCFTA is supposed to be built around the freight forwarders who will be the main driver and who will point out lapses for correction. Over the last four years, we have been asking the same question, who issues the Certificate of Origin? Because the main focus of AfCFTA is the Certificate and Origin of the product. May be I have not heard, read or aware, the authority that issues the Certificate of Origin is still in contention.
But according to the Customs CG who was represented at the event, the Nigeria Customs Service has been pronounced the Designated Competent Authority responsible for issuing Certificate Of Origin in the AfCFTA regime?
That is how it’s supposed to be. Customs is actually supposed to tell us the origin of the product and if there’s anything added to determine the quantity and all the rest. It rests squarely on customs. Freight Forwarders need to help customs to really professionalized. I have seen the CG come up with that mantra, it is our duty now to let them know that professionalism is what we want. We should return back what they are throwing at us. The agents are not ready, the freight forwarders are not ready, are the customs ready to professionalize? Are they ready to be held accountable?
When you talk about Advanced Ruling, make it easy. What is Advanced Ruling? I want to bring in this glass cup, I would want to know the HS Code, the value so that I don’t have issues at the port. What are the criteria? How easy would it be? Where is the sensitization? I was watching Customs Duty on TV yesterday, they were training the officers on issues of Advanced Ruling, is it the officers that you need to train or sensitize when an average shipper who needs to know so that once you have an advanced ruling, if it is for one year that you can import, it’s an agreement, a document that you can tender in the court of law.
I was so excited when the CG mouthed out some months back because it’s like customs is saying, hold us accountable, we have agreed with you that if you bring in this glass cup, this is it and that would have created a very good barrier between the shipper and any non compliant customs officer in the port because you just flash it on them that this is an advanced ruling. I don’t know how easy it is get because I have not applied for but now, I saw them training customs officers. If you train customs officers to apply advanced ruling, you need to also train the community that this is the opportunity for you to get out of the port without too much hitches and if anybody stops you, flash the advanced ruling which is a tool used globally.
So, for customs to say they are ready, it’s a good step in the right direction but it shouldn’t be paparazzi thing because everything about this country is paparazzi but when you get deep down, you will find out that there’s nothing on ground.
Going by this development, would you say that freight forwarders in Nigeria has been equipped to actually participate and make the best out of this trade?
Freight Forwarders are very much prepared. When you talk about preparedness, an average freight forwarder is equipped to drive AfCFTA. We are talking in my office, what do I need to be a major mover and driver of goods? I have all the equipment that I need but then, if you now go further to say… It is going to be very competitive, the Nigerian factor doesn’t come to play because when we talk, we say Nigerian factor, this is a Continental platform. So, if you go into that direction, that is bringing us back to us to my earlier position.
The Nigeria Customs Service as the lead agent, what has it done to incentivize the drivers who I know and I stand to be corrected, are the freight forwarders to make this happen? By now, the customs should have be training and sensitizing the freight forwarders in order to adequately prepare them for the task ahead.
When the customs has issue with a particular corporate license, they know what to do to get the principal Officers to react but when it’s time for training, they will tell that they are faceless. How can you grant a license to a company, every year you inspect their offices and documents in case they moved from point A to B yet, you turn around to say that they are faceless. But when you have issue with a particular corporate license, you know what to do to invite the principal. How many times have they invited the people that they licensed?
What I am saying is that customs needs to do more. The CGC is really trying, at least, he is putting us on a global map but then, he needs to go deep down and understand that if you have a weak freight forwarding community now that you can rub shud upon, it’s not going to continue otherwise, every paparazzi thing that they are doing will be exposed by the time they have incompetent people showing ignorance about the protocols because if you don’t give people the opportunity and sensitize them, you will have yourself to blame.
It’s a competition, AfCFTA means a Ghanaian freight forwarder wants to come to Apapa Port to do business and get out. It’s a borderless arrangement and when he gets here and you are telling him OC Gate, OC that, he will be wondering what all those things mean. I have been in a community at NPA where a German from Antwerp port said he has never heard anything called demurrage and he had been a port Manager at Antwerp port. He was asking what is demurage. That he was hearing the grammar for the first time. That is where things work and so, when you bring an Egyptian or a South African freight forwarder to come here, move his goods and want to pick it up there and you are giving him all these jargons, what is he going to do?
So, are we really ready? Customs has a lot to do. Yes, they are generating revenue, yes, they think they don’t need the freight forwarders to incentivized and put at par with their contemporaries across the globe, good luck to them but it’s not going to continue because this is about to change and the earlier the customs is ready to see freight forwarders as partners, because we are professionals, a customs officer has a calling, I have a calling to be a professional customs broker and freight forwarder. If he thinks I don’t exist, very soon, it will be very clear that it’s not going to be business as usual.
So, AfCFTA is something that customs needs to do more, government needs to be very willing to apply all the relevant sanctions if need be and then, have a listening ear otherwise Nigeria will just be in the wood and hundreds of paparazzi will not solve the problem. We will be exposed as not ready.
So, the CGC really needs to come down and talk to freight forwarders to help his drive for compliance.
Photo: Alhaji Abdulazeez Babatunde Mukaila, Chairman, International Relations Committee, ANLCA and Managing Director/CEO, Mickey Excellency Nigeria Limited.
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