The Eyewitness reporter

As the euphoria on the appointment of Wale Adeniyi as the new Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, is gradually waning, the industry stakeholders, who unanimously hailed his appointment, have now tasked the new Customs boss, to hit the ground running.

They disclosed that Adeniyi has a lot of work to do given the distortions and dislocation foisted on the Customs processes by his predecessor, Col. Hameed Ali(rtd).

Ventilating the general mood of the industry operators, especially the freight forwarding practitioners, Barrister Ada Akpunonu, a chieftain of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents(ANLCA) advised the new Customs boss to review some of the actions and policies of his predecessor which she believed had scared away investors and importers from the Nigerian Ports.

Akpunonu said one of the outstanding damages done to customs operations by Ali was the introduction of multiple units of customs which she claimed impeded trade facilitation.

The Amazon of the freight forwarding industry advised the new CG to, as a matter of urgency, commence the process of dismantling this barrier to trade facilitation, if he wants to attract needed revenue.

She believed that Adeniyi has the capacity and experience to reposition the revenue-generating agency

“The appointment of Adeniyi as the CGC was a welcome development and it gladdens our hearts as stakeholders and Customs brokers.

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“At least, somebody from the service is now the CGC. Wale is a thoroughbred and experienced officer who rose through the ranks. We congratulate him and are happy for him.

“One of the worst things that happened to Customs was bringing an outsider and we have never had it so bad in Customs when Hameed Ali was the CG.

“Because he was a soldier, he was not a listening leader. He ruled Customs as if the agency was a military command.

“During his tenure, there were so many units he created in a bid to squeeze money out of freight forwarders in the name of revenue collection.

“There was a lack of discipline among the staff, especially the junior ones. His tenure was a disaster.

“But with Adeniyi’s appointment, it is a new dawn in the Customs and we all welcome it with enthusiasm and hope for better Customs operations” she declared.

Akpunonu said that the new CG needs to overhaul the whole system which she claimed has been polluted by the anti-trade policies of Hameed Ali.

”The whole system needs to be overhauled if Wale desires to succeed because Ali has polluted and corrupted the system.

”The particular area which the new CGC needs to look into is the inordinate revenue generation which Ali pursued to the point of killing the facilitation of trade. It got to a point that this passion became a disincentive to foreign investment and many importers, especially foreign ones, had to relocate to the neighboring countries to do their business.

”How do you encourage trade without facilitating trade? When you facilitate trade, trade would be stimulated, there will be more volume of imports and invariably, you will generate more revenue, but that was not the case with Ali who drove the officers crazy in the pursuit of revenue and who in turn harassed and marooned freight forwarders in order to meet their revenue target without facilitating trade. This system as instituted by Ali encourages smuggling.

”Where is the so-called huge revenue they collected when Nigeria still borrowed huge sums from our creditors?

”But we are happy that President Tinubu has appointed an officer who we hope will pursue policies and programmes that will facilitate trade which will enhance revenue. This will make people work with less stress and bring back those had fled our ports.

”Also, there will be less smuggling as trade is being facilitated at the ports and importers and their agents are working in a peaceful and less intimidating environment.

”The new CG should also streamline the multiplicity of Customs units that Ali foisted on the system such as Customs Police, CG strike force and the rest.

”We never experienced the presence of Customs police, we merely heard about them, they are not outside operating in the port environment. This unit is duplicating the function of the Customs Investigating Unit(CIU) which operates like secret agents.

”Even, the Federal Operation Unit(FOU) has also been doing the same work.

”But Ali came and unleashed all kinds of units on the system which encumbered the Customs operations, all doing the same job of running after and harassing importers and their agents to meet the inordinate revenue figures.

”The new CG should therefore streamline all these units into compact and effective machinery that will not encumber trade.

”If the new CG could harness the potential of the well-experienced management and staff of the service we have in Customs, he would succeed in his tenure.

Barrister Akpunonu also decried the menace of touts who he accused of indiscriminately stopping legally exited containers on the road and extorting them.

She called on the Federal government to immediately stop this menace as it is capable of adding to the cost of doing trade at the port and at the same time, been a disincentive to foreign investments in the port industry

”On the issue of touts now stopping legally released consignments on the road and extorting money, that is another worrisome development that is killing trade which the government should help to address.

”It has become a big problem because after the importers have paid and escaped from customs and other agencies at the ports, having paid through their noses, they are still being subjected to another round of extortions and harassment on the road by these touts. This is not to talk of the harrowing experiences we have in the hands of the numerous Customs units on the road.

”So when the importers are taking their goods to their warehouse, they are stopped on the road by the touts.

”To carry your box from the ports and probably, going to Ikeja, you will pay about N150,000 to N200,000, cumulatively, to the touts on the road.

”It is very disheartening and discouraging and I don’t think any responsible government will sit and watch this type of economic menace continue.

”However, the reason why this practice is going on unabated is because we don’t have an association.

”The government may not even be aware of most of these things until they are brought to its notice but our association, ANLCA, is in comatose for the past four years, so there was no longer a voice to speak to the authority on the challenges facing the freight forwarders.

We are mostly to be blamed for some of our woes rather than blaming the government because when we cannot put our house in order, what do we expect the Customs or the government to come and do for us? It is a shame”, Akpunonu declared.