Nwokeoji: Biggest Issue at Ports is Multiplicity of Govt Security Agencies
NWOKEOJI
Decades of efforts by the federal government to reduce the number of security agencies at the nation’s ports may have failed with a lot of consequences on trade facilitation and negative image against the country. In an exclusive interview with SHIPPING DAY, the President of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Chief Emenike Nwokeoji, laments that the biggest challenges freight forwarders suffer at the ports now were the presence of all manner of security agencies and units at the ports. Nwokeoji expresses regret that while the world is going paperless, Nigeria is having more papers as far as clearing is concerned. He
speaks on its negative effect on the country, and other industry issues, including his efforts to restore peace in ANLCA. Excerpts…
ANLCA has in the past few years been riddled with crisis, what is the situation now, how have you been able to manage the peace process since your emergence as President?
If you were able to observe that before my election, that things were not normal, you should have been able to also observe that after my election, that things are not the same anymore. That ANLCA is now one big family. So, we came on restoration mandate and based on that we have tried within our little capacity to restore a whole lot of things about the association from beginning with public view, restoring peace, restoring relationship and everything we have tried within our little capacity to restore ANLCA back to its rightful position in the maritime economic field. I was expecting that those of you outside should tell us whether we have done enough, or whether we are doing anything at all. That I can tell you for now.
So you can say now that there is total peace in the association?
My choice of word was that we are one big family. If you chose to call total peace, I might well ask you where do you have total peace? Are you sure you even have total peace in your immediate family? All I can tell you is that we have peace. Even in the grave, some people don’t have total peace, that is why some graves are chained (laughs..). So we have peace and we are moving forward.
I remember shortly after the inauguration of your executive, one of your members and former President of the Association, Prince Olayiwola Shittu, had stressed the need for you to keep an open door policy and try to reach out to aggrieved members who lost in the last election, what is your take on this?
That is part of the restoration. We have visited every past President of the association, those that opened their doors. Everyone of them has welcomed us. We have visited past leaders, BoT members, those that have lost faith in the association, we have tried as much as possible. We have been visiting them one after the other and I think they are happy about what is happening in the association.
You just said you visited those that opened their doors to you, does it mean some of them are not ready to open doors for you?
If you use the word ‘not ready to open their doors’, it may not be so. May be the time we were giving somebody appointment, it may not be convenient for the person. So, he will tell you, can we see you next week, he says no, so we are waiting when the person gives us appointment when it is convenient .
We all know about those who were aggrieved or not in your camp during the election, is it that it is the same people that you have not been able to visit?
When I say we have not been able to visit, there is no way you can visit everybody because we have a job to do. So, what I mean is that it was like a thank you visit after the election. After the election, you have to reach out to some prominent members to seek their cooperation, tell them thank you for the role they played in bringing peace back to the association. So, I can even tell you one of them said, no, don’t bother, it will be big trouble coming where my office is, rather I will visit you and two of them have done that. That will tell you, it is not in bad fate. So, I don’t think there is anybody who has refused to see us. That is the way it is. So, when you were talking about those who were not on my camp, there is nothing like that.
What particular project do you have in mind to execute while in ANLCA to move it forward?
If you call it project, okay. As you can see, this is our office. What we owe every member of this association is most importantly to protect their interest. To help to provide a conducive environment for them to be able to secure one job that you will execute and put food on the table for the family, not in a situation where you will finish working and you are still owing because when you get out there, the agencies of government will collect what is supposed to be your profit. So, that is the much we are doing, giving them that protection and intervening where necessary when they are being exploited. That is what we have done. We started doing that, visiting the Custom authority. We have gone to SON, NAFDAC all the agencies of government. We are reaching out to them to let them know that we are partners in progress. If there is any area to collaborate for the smooth running of operations in the ports.
Can you talk about other issues that freight forwarders encounter while clearing their goods at the ports?
The biggest issue clearing agents go through is: the world is going paperless, but in Nigeria, we are having more papers as far as clearing is concerned. If you import this phone (shows a phone)..the clearing agent you hand it over to clear, be it in the seaport or airport will have to contend with the police, Quarantine, sometimes two of the, animal and plant, SON, NDLEA, SSS, Immigration, Customs, Ports Authority, FAAN, Terminal Operators, all to just get this one phone out. So, it is really unbelievable when you open one container for examination, you see the number of people calling the agent, saying, come, tell me what this is for. None of them will look at it and say, this one does not fall within the area of my office and walk away. All of them will be asking very irritating questions. Apart from one agency of government that will say, this one is not within our area, and walk away, all others will claim that they have interest . So, that is the biggest challenge that clearing agents have. You will run from Shipping company to terminal operators to all these agencies just to bring out one shipment. So, it is really stressful.
Would you say that these bottlenecks are aimed at extorting the clearing agents?
It is not aimed at extorting agents. I cant use the word ‘aimed at’. I will say it encourages extortion because the world over, they are trying to eliminate human contact. The more you continue to encourage human contact you know what the outcome will definitely lead to. But where human contact is reduced, you are relating with machine, this machine cant make a demand. So, we need to reduce this human contact. I don’t know whether it is because of the level of our unemployment even when government policies that work in other places, but when you bring it in here, they will work negatively.
To what extent have been able to bring this problem to the door steps of those involved?
We have representation to relevant agencies. Last year, fortunately for the first time, the association was invited to make input to the programme of the economic activities of the government for 2024 – the National Economic Summit. And we made reasonable input/submission there believing that the authorities will take one or two things there. Our concern is that this will not continue so that it will not ridicule the country as a whole. I use the word ‘ridicule’ because when foreigners come here, it is not good for them to experience it. You know, you can have a foreigner come here to work for months and they come with two boxes of personal effect and you may be required to sometimes take them to identify some things. And by the time he sees what goes on, he will start wondering what is happening. Government should try to play down on revenue generation in certain areas . I listened to a new report recently about where government is talking of expatriates levy. Must we make money in everything? Do we consider how it works in other places. An expatriate is coming here to impart knowledge, is coming here because you have bought a machine and you want him to come and take people (workers through two months or six months on how to handle the machine and you want him to pay you levy. Must everything be money? So, that is just the problem.
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has been stressing the need for online business transactions in which freight forwarders can stay in the comfort of their office and clear goods without being at the ports, how prepared are your members for this?
We are very much prepared. Presently, as we speak, I can stay in the comfort of my office and do a submission to customs, generate duty assessment, make payment. I can only go to the port to examine the goods where necessary. I stay in my office, generate some terminal operators’ bills, make payments, book for positioning of containers, without stepping out of my office. I can stay in my office, make payments, generate involces, make payments to shipping companies, my staff can only go there because they need the hard copies for the Bill of lading. So, agents , I can tell you are 100 percent ready for automation. But the issues we are having now may be from the importers. What is the level of their compliance in declaration. Because if your declaration is not what it should be, that is where the issue of: “you should come and open this, lets look at it”. So, the totality of declarations will help in smooth running of our own operations.
So, how is your association trying to reach out to importers on this problem?
Many people are doing that on daily basis. But I must tell you that some of our members , with due respect, encourage importers to do that (non-compliance). But if you discourage your importer, but what happens in our own case… is like the lawyer. There are some cases in this country and some people will say nobody will defend this man, but before you know it, prominent lawyers will go and defend the person. I raised that issue with a lawyer sometimes and the response was … he said yes, we can go there and use technicality and set the man free. And the man will see you as a good lawyer, even the world will see you as a good lawyer. So, if you refuse such bid, another lawyer will do it and take the credit. So, there is hunger in the land, and it is difficult to even keep yourself clean. It is difficult to tell you importer that what you are doing is not good.
Again, what is the association doing to ensure that cases like the scenario you painted do not continue in respect of under-declaration and outright concealment?
On under-declaration, who is the declarant? It is the importer that calls you that he has imported goods, you were not there when he loaded, you are not part of the negotiation between him and the supplier. He is only telling you he has 20ft container and is carrying tyres and he will give you the document. And you will see some of the units inside, the day you are seeing this cargo is the same day all the agencies of government are seeing it. You don’t have any opportunity of going to open the container before anybody to check whether the declaration is the same with the content. And you cant even break the seal without customs being there. You cannot touch the seal otherwise you go to jail. It is the customs that will break the seal of the container.. the seal has a number. They will take it, record the number, yes , they have seen the number before coming. It is in the manifest. They will break it and take sample of it to their office to show before I came, it was sealed, look at the seal, this is part of it, they have a place where they keep seals, they are the first to see it and they open the container not the clearing agent. But they will always heap it on the agent. The agent did not travel abroad to go and ship these things. So, the declaration, the concealment, under-valuation… no no. That is why we are agents. That is why in our terms, when we declare we say, “1 x 20ft container said to container (STC)”. It is always written in all our documents. Because we are not there.
But for the purpose of reform, can your association create a forum to get the importers change?
We don’t have a forum where we reach the importers. We reach our agents for instance, we know what is happening in the country about importation of some dangerous items, hard drugs. So, we advise our members to know their customers well. This is because as they open the container, if anything there is so offensive, the agent is the first point of arrest. Then , it is now your duty to go and start looking for the importer.
Few days ago, the Customs announced 90 Days reprieve for importers to pay duty on improperly imported vehicles, what is your reaction on the policy?
For any man to import goods and leave it in the port, it means the man is sick or something happened. The port is a transit area, not a warehouse, so reminding a man whose millions are staying in the port that he has 90 days is not enough, he is aware, lets first of all know why the cargo is there, May be, it is a vehicle you have imported to use as a birthday gift to your wife, why should you leave it in the port?. The basic thing government should do is to look in on how to remove the levy on them. By the time these vehicles arrived their owners have looked at it and seen that by the time they pay the duty and levy, that it is better for them to go and buy a smaller vehicle in the market. That is why they abandoned them there. No sane man can import a vehicle… do you know the excitement of owning a new vehicle? You know you have a new one, it is somewhere and you cant go and pick it up. The problem is the high rate of duty. It is not a question of giving him 90 days, did you stop him before?, something stopped him. So, lets get to the root, why are they leaving these vehicles there? So the emphasis is… let them reduce levy on some certain vehicles. Like I said earlier, everything must not be about revenue. It is now we are complaining there is no food, but there is food in the country, trailer loads are carrying food from Nigeria to other countries. And you said there is no food. There is food, but the people have little purchasing power to buy these food in the market. Is there any time you go to the market and you cannot see the food items you want? But the problem is where is the money. So, what is necessary is to empower the people so that these prices will come down. That is why we are saying exchange rate for calculating duties must be stable to allow planning. With this, the car issue will not arise. You import your vehicle, you use that particular rate to know how much duty will be. Not when you import vehicle at a particular time, before you know it, the exchange rate has jumped up.
This brings me to the question of how customs revenue target has impacted on clearing at the ports?
Customs is not a policy making agency, but simply border control officers and anti-smuggling. That is their statutory obligation. Like I said before, it is not everything that we must stress revenue, we must think about the people that are generating this revenue to better their lives. Will they still be alive to enjoy anything .
speaks on its negative effect on the country, and other industry issues, including his efforts to restore peace in ANLCA. Excerpts…
ANLCA has in the past few years been riddled with crisis, what is the situation now, how have you been able to manage the peace process since your emergence as President?
If you were able to observe that before my election, that things were not normal, you should have been able to also observe that after my election, that things are not the same anymore. That ANLCA is now one big family. So, we came on restoration mandate and based on that we have tried within our little capacity to restore a whole lot of things about the association from beginning with public view, restoring peace, restoring relationship and everything we have tried within our little capacity to restore ANLCA back to its rightful position in the maritime economic field. I was expecting that those of you outside should tell us whether we have done enough, or whether we are doing anything at all. That I can tell you for now.
So you can say now that there is total peace in the association?
My choice of word was that we are one big family. If you chose to call total peace, I might well ask you where do you have total peace? Are you sure you even have total peace in your immediate family? All I can tell you is that we have peace. Even in the grave, some people don’t have total peace, that is why some graves are chained (laughs..). So we have peace and we are moving forward.
I remember shortly after the inauguration of your executive, one of your members and former President of the Association, Prince Olayiwola Shittu, had stressed the need for you to keep an open door policy and try to reach out to aggrieved members who lost in the last election, what is your take on this?
That is part of the restoration. We have visited every past President of the association, those that opened their doors. Everyone of them has welcomed us. We have visited past leaders, BoT members, those that have lost faith in the association, we have tried as much as possible. We have been visiting them one after the other and I think they are happy about what is happening in the association.
You just said you visited those that opened their doors to you, does it mean some of them are not ready to open doors for you?
If you use the word ‘not ready to open their doors’, it may not be so. May be the time we were giving somebody appointment, it may not be convenient for the person. So, he will tell you, can we see you next week, he says no, so we are waiting when the person gives us appointment when it is convenient .
We all know about those who were aggrieved or not in your camp during the election, is it that it is the same people that you have not been able to visit?
When I say we have not been able to visit, there is no way you can visit everybody because we have a job to do. So, what I mean is that it was like a thank you visit after the election. After the election, you have to reach out to some prominent members to seek their cooperation, tell them thank you for the role they played in bringing peace back to the association. So, I can even tell you one of them said, no, don’t bother, it will be big trouble coming where my office is, rather I will visit you and two of them have done that. That will tell you, it is not in bad fate. So, I don’t think there is anybody who has refused to see us. That is the way it is. So, when you were talking about those who were not on my camp, there is nothing like that.
What particular project do you have in mind to execute while in ANLCA to move it forward?
If you call it project, okay. As you can see, this is our office. What we owe every member of this association is most importantly to protect their interest. To help to provide a conducive environment for them to be able to secure one job that you will execute and put food on the table for the family, not in a situation where you will finish working and you are still owing because when you get out there, the agencies of government will collect what is supposed to be your profit. So, that is the much we are doing, giving them that protection and intervening where necessary when they are being exploited. That is what we have done. We started doing that, visiting the Custom authority. We have gone to SON, NAFDAC all the agencies of government. We are reaching out to them to let them know that we are partners in progress. If there is any area to collaborate for the smooth running of operations in the ports.
Can you talk about other issues that freight forwarders encounter while clearing their goods at the ports?
The biggest issue clearing agents go through is: the world is going paperless, but in Nigeria, we are having more papers as far as clearing is concerned. If you import this phone (shows a phone)..the clearing agent you hand it over to clear, be it in the seaport or airport will have to contend with the police, Quarantine, sometimes two of the, animal and plant, SON, NDLEA, SSS, Immigration, Customs, Ports Authority, FAAN, Terminal Operators, all to just get this one phone out. So, it is really unbelievable when you open one container for examination, you see the number of people calling the agent, saying, come, tell me what this is for. None of them will look at it and say, this one does not fall within the area of my office and walk away. All of them will be asking very irritating questions. Apart from one agency of government that will say, this one is not within our area, and walk away, all others will claim that they have interest . So, that is the biggest challenge that clearing agents have. You will run from Shipping company to terminal operators to all these agencies just to bring out one shipment. So, it is really stressful.
Would you say that these bottlenecks are aimed at extorting the clearing agents?
It is not aimed at extorting agents. I cant use the word ‘aimed at’. I will say it encourages extortion because the world over, they are trying to eliminate human contact. The more you continue to encourage human contact you know what the outcome will definitely lead to. But where human contact is reduced, you are relating with machine, this machine cant make a demand. So, we need to reduce this human contact. I don’t know whether it is because of the level of our unemployment even when government policies that work in other places, but when you bring it in here, they will work negatively.
To what extent have been able to bring this problem to the door steps of those involved?
We have representation to relevant agencies. Last year, fortunately for the first time, the association was invited to make input to the programme of the economic activities of the government for 2024 – the National Economic Summit. And we made reasonable input/submission there believing that the authorities will take one or two things there. Our concern is that this will not continue so that it will not ridicule the country as a whole. I use the word ‘ridicule’ because when foreigners come here, it is not good for them to experience it. You know, you can have a foreigner come here to work for months and they come with two boxes of personal effect and you may be required to sometimes take them to identify some things. And by the time he sees what goes on, he will start wondering what is happening. Government should try to play down on revenue generation in certain areas . I listened to a new report recently about where government is talking of expatriates levy. Must we make money in everything? Do we consider how it works in other places. An expatriate is coming here to impart knowledge, is coming here because you have bought a machine and you want him to come and take people (workers through two months or six months on how to handle the machine and you want him to pay you levy. Must everything be money? So, that is just the problem.
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has been stressing the need for online business transactions in which freight forwarders can stay in the comfort of their office and clear goods without being at the ports, how prepared are your members for this?
We are very much prepared. Presently, as we speak, I can stay in the comfort of my office and do a submission to customs, generate duty assessment, make payment. I can only go to the port to examine the goods where necessary. I stay in my office, generate some terminal operators’ bills, make payments, book for positioning of containers, without stepping out of my office. I can stay in my office, make payments, generate involces, make payments to shipping companies, my staff can only go there because they need the hard copies for the Bill of lading. So, agents , I can tell you are 100 percent ready for automation. But the issues we are having now may be from the importers. What is the level of their compliance in declaration. Because if your declaration is not what it should be, that is where the issue of: “you should come and open this, lets look at it”. So, the totality of declarations will help in smooth running of our own operations.
So, how is your association trying to reach out to importers on this problem?
Many people are doing that on daily basis. But I must tell you that some of our members , with due respect, encourage importers to do that (non-compliance). But if you discourage your importer, but what happens in our own case… is like the lawyer. There are some cases in this country and some people will say nobody will defend this man, but before you know it, prominent lawyers will go and defend the person. I raised that issue with a lawyer sometimes and the response was … he said yes, we can go there and use technicality and set the man free. And the man will see you as a good lawyer, even the world will see you as a good lawyer. So, if you refuse such bid, another lawyer will do it and take the credit. So, there is hunger in the land, and it is difficult to even keep yourself clean. It is difficult to tell you importer that what you are doing is not good.
Again, what is the association doing to ensure that cases like the scenario you painted do not continue in respect of under-declaration and outright concealment?
On under-declaration, who is the declarant? It is the importer that calls you that he has imported goods, you were not there when he loaded, you are not part of the negotiation between him and the supplier. He is only telling you he has 20ft container and is carrying tyres and he will give you the document. And you will see some of the units inside, the day you are seeing this cargo is the same day all the agencies of government are seeing it. You don’t have any opportunity of going to open the container before anybody to check whether the declaration is the same with the content. And you cant even break the seal without customs being there. You cannot touch the seal otherwise you go to jail. It is the customs that will break the seal of the container.. the seal has a number. They will take it, record the number, yes , they have seen the number before coming. It is in the manifest. They will break it and take sample of it to their office to show before I came, it was sealed, look at the seal, this is part of it, they have a place where they keep seals, they are the first to see it and they open the container not the clearing agent. But they will always heap it on the agent. The agent did not travel abroad to go and ship these things. So, the declaration, the concealment, under-valuation… no no. That is why we are agents. That is why in our terms, when we declare we say, “1 x 20ft container said to container (STC)”. It is always written in all our documents. Because we are not there.
But for the purpose of reform, can your association create a forum to get the importers change?
We don’t have a forum where we reach the importers. We reach our agents for instance, we know what is happening in the country about importation of some dangerous items, hard drugs. So, we advise our members to know their customers well. This is because as they open the container, if anything there is so offensive, the agent is the first point of arrest. Then , it is now your duty to go and start looking for the importer.
Few days ago, the Customs announced 90 Days reprieve for importers to pay duty on improperly imported vehicles, what is your reaction on the policy?
For any man to import goods and leave it in the port, it means the man is sick or something happened. The port is a transit area, not a warehouse, so reminding a man whose millions are staying in the port that he has 90 days is not enough, he is aware, lets first of all know why the cargo is there, May be, it is a vehicle you have imported to use as a birthday gift to your wife, why should you leave it in the port?. The basic thing government should do is to look in on how to remove the levy on them. By the time these vehicles arrived their owners have looked at it and seen that by the time they pay the duty and levy, that it is better for them to go and buy a smaller vehicle in the market. That is why they abandoned them there. No sane man can import a vehicle… do you know the excitement of owning a new vehicle? You know you have a new one, it is somewhere and you cant go and pick it up. The problem is the high rate of duty. It is not a question of giving him 90 days, did you stop him before?, something stopped him. So, lets get to the root, why are they leaving these vehicles there? So the emphasis is… let them reduce levy on some certain vehicles. Like I said earlier, everything must not be about revenue. It is now we are complaining there is no food, but there is food in the country, trailer loads are carrying food from Nigeria to other countries. And you said there is no food. There is food, but the people have little purchasing power to buy these food in the market. Is there any time you go to the market and you cannot see the food items you want? But the problem is where is the money. So, what is necessary is to empower the people so that these prices will come down. That is why we are saying exchange rate for calculating duties must be stable to allow planning. With this, the car issue will not arise. You import your vehicle, you use that particular rate to know how much duty will be. Not when you import vehicle at a particular time, before you know it, the exchange rate has jumped up.
This brings me to the question of how customs revenue target has impacted on clearing at the ports?
Customs is not a policy making agency, but simply border control officers and anti-smuggling. That is their statutory obligation. Like I said before, it is not everything that we must stress revenue, we must think about the people that are generating this revenue to better their lives. Will they still be alive to enjoy anything .
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