As Customs expand the areas of coverage for the newly deployed B’Odogwu, the Deputy National President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, NAGAFF, Chief Afam Chukwuma has assured that the leadership of the freight forwarding associations would give maximum support to the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS and the federal government to ensure that the platform is successful.
Chukwuma, who stated this in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos on Monday, observed that with the successful deployment of B’Odogwu, trade would be seamless, save time and unnecessary bills as well as save the demurrages which he said would add to the freight forwarders’ profit.
“We can only be optimistic, we sincerely hope and we are willing to support the customs and the government at large to achieve this because it is good for us if they succeed. We want to deliver our cargo under 48 hours to our clients and we want to make profits because this is our business.
“And if B’Odogwu succeeds, it’s going to help us. I want to assess job by 9.00am and I can assess it without having network glitches that will take me till afternoon or the next day. That’s a lot of waste. So, let us hope B’Odogwu works well.
“But I think on my own, I am a bit more optimistic that it will work, my reason being that whoever is the service provider should have studied coming from ASYCUDA to NICIS and now to B’Odogwu, he should have reviewed all the experiences and under a completely new administration in customs, and you want to do the same thing, or do worse than you met, come on, I don’t think CGC Adeniyi is that kind of person because he’s someone that wants to succeed, someone that wants to take customs to the next level.
“So, I have so much confidence in him and I believe he will do much better with B’Odogwu”, he said.
Noting that the freight forwarders still face the challenges of server failures and other technological glitches which usually should happen at the initial stage, he however, expressed optimism that as they improve on B’Odogwu, things will get better.
“The B’Odogwu was only introduced towards the end of last year and up till now, it’s not in all commands. I am sure that as of today, the 27th of January, there’s no B’Odogwu in Apapa command. I know they used PTML as a pilot command, I think they are progressing to Tincan now but yet to come to Apapa and maybe to other commands.
“So, that’s to tell you that it’s work in progress but I believe, what we want to see as stakeholders and freight forwarders is for B’Odogwu to solve all the challenges associated with the server failure. It’s a huge problem for us because we lose time, we lose man hours, we lose revenue because you cannot go to a shipping and terminal operators and make a case that because there’s no network for you to work, that’s why the goods are delayed and that you cannot pay demurrage.
“For instance, you are supposed to take your goods out of the port on Friday and for server failure, you are not able to do that, maybe you have to wait till Monday afternoon because Saturday and Sunday may not be a day to collect work in certain ports. So, you have three days to pay demurrage because you have to pay for Saturday, Sunday and Monday when eventually if the server cooperates, it’s taken out. So, those are the issues.
“But I know the CGC is someone that is vast and committed to the growth of Customs activities and I am sure he’s, we have made this complaint and I have personally written, NAGAFF has written and we have said it in several fora, I know he’s listening and we know he will work on it.
“In fact, the day we visited him in November last year, we also made this particular complaint to him, I remember that he said that day that the Egyptians that you see today, you will see no more, because I remember him using that word. So, he is working on it and we want to believe that before they deploy the B’Odogwu in all the commands, and stabilize, everything will be well”, he assured.
Photo: Chief Afam Chukwuma, Deputy National President of NAGAFF.
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