In continuation of our chat with the National President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Agents (ANLCA), Prince Olayiwola Shittu, in respect of excruciating pains genuine agents daily suffer to perform their tasks, the ANLCA Arrowhead talks on the intricacies of the web of corruption in cargo facilitation and describes it as a… Corruption that President Buhari cannot tackle!
Excerpt please:-
There was a time Comptroller Edike, now promoted Assistant Comptroller General, at Harvey Road made a law that any officer that delayed a file unduly would be surcharged. Since Edike was promoted and moved up as Zonal Comptroller, we learn the old delay stuff is back at Apapa. But, is the delay presently limited to the Apapa customs Command?
No. delay of cargo is everywhere now. And it manifests in different ways; including delay of cargoes, via putting of road blocks. It is a natural thing now and it is based on the fact that there’s no more ‘espirit-de-corp’ amongst officers.
Besides, Custom documentation has not improved; forget about the discussions of online stuff. Its only a little part of the process that you you can do online. For the rest, they will still tell you to go and make photocopies of the documents you are carrying. Then one person will register it here, pass it to another, who will enter it here and pass it to another there. Then, that one will enter it into his own register, and pass it to another. A job one person can do they can put three, or four persons to do it. There are more officers in the revenue area today, than in the anti-smuggling area. That is why you can see a command having excess officers; so, they duplicate the job to get themselves engaged.
Some of these things are issues we would have discussed with the Comptroller General if he had agreed to meet us; but the same people who are going to be affected have also made sure the man never gives audience.
There’s no association of freight forwarders that the man has given audience. No, at least not to my knowledge; and if there’s going to be any, I know ANCLA should have been the Number one, because we are the recipients of Customs license. So, if he was able to stop that, valid his threats of even jailing agents who deliberately defraud, would that not have counted as an aspect of his achievement? And if that is not done, would you blame anyone?
But as things are presently, it is seemingly now, every man for himself. As I was telling you, if a Deputy Comptroller and an Assistant Comptroller both jointly go out and do all same examination; and come back and the agents goes to the DC for final release, the agents would still naturally be suspected that he has only succeeded in compromising all those officers!
When General Babangida, during his regime expanded the participation of security officers in port operation with the mindset then that the more their numbers, the more discouraging it would be anybody to bribe them, it was an experiment. The idea then, was that the more agency you have to go through in the port, or the more tables that you are going to go through, the more it is going to become less attractive for you to corrupt anyone, he was trying out an idea… and he thought he was doing the best.
When Babangida’s Government decided to increase the number of security agencies to participate in port operations and cargo clearance he thought the number would discourage as many people as possible; but let me tell you, our experience today has shown that it doesn’t matter. The number of people you put, may no longer matter, once they have a common interest. The common interest being ‘what is in it for me?’ or, ‘how much will I go home with?’; because they are already, on the same level!
That is why what an officer does is no longer taking as sacred or sacrosanct by another officer; to the point that against regulations, decisions arrived at the headquarters can be queried by an officer on the field. They’ll just accuse you: ‘after you go Abuja go drop something for them, you are coming here to tell us stories!’ …….. It has gone as bad as that!
Our agent are frustrated. They are so frustrated that sometimes when they look at me, they don’t know that the same pain that is affecting them is also affecting me. There is no agency in the port today that has not turned themselves into revenue generators because they are queried upstairs. ‘What are you doing within the port?’; ‘What is our revenue generation?’ and because of the serious regard they put revenue, even agencies like NAFDAC, Port Quarantine and those agencies whose functions should amount to genuine Social services, in respect of government responsibility to protect the citizens are also going after revenues!
They are meant to provide Social services; and that’s why they are on budgets, on appropriation. But because it is very difficult for you now to pad budgets, all of them are now looking for supplements at the ports by ensuring that compulsorily generating money officially.
The media need to do investigation; you go and pay; they give you receipt and tell you ‘it’s going to TSA account’ to form their own budget, but what about the non-receiptable? If the official money you need to pay is N50,000; why are you disturbing yourself, bring N20,000, carry your load and go now. But don’t forget, they can still insist that ‘you report back’. And that is why, when they deploy them to the port, they jubilate.
So the agent is between the lion and the deep blue sea. The importer is harping and charging at you, that you are incompetent, that you cannot argue his case; when at the back of your mind, you only want to do your job, as professionally as possible! The only thing that you know, is that the importer wants his c argo as soon as possible. You are looking at the documents and interpreting. At a point, you might even be tempted to go and give the importer the papers and simply beg that they need to pay this money; at the expense of losing that importer!
Look, when we are convinced he needs to pay such money, based on examination, one can reasonably understand, because one can easily take the papers to him, provide explanations and ask him to pay. But would the agencies functionaries commend you for doing that? It is present situation. And it is a corruption that even President Buhari cannot solve! But why?
The PAAR is supposed to be an indigenous but new thing meant to correct the old order and their associated lapses. Are we not implying already, via the current experience that the old order is a little bit better and fairer than the current one?
No, I wouldn’t say that. You see I’m always very careful at looking at what people call the ‘old order’ and ‘new order’. Circumstances change as it grows along. There was a time when Dikko was there; and he was changing the Comptrollers, according to them, for ‘flimsy excuses’. A Comptroller spends just few weeks, and you hear the man has been removed; or you he spends two or three months, and you hear he has been removed. People were wondering what style of administration was this. Some people even complained that before some comptroller would settle down, he has been removed. But then, he was only acting his own principle: that once he sees you compromise, he takes you out! He was becoming hard on people but, it was enough to ensure officers remained focus. It was true that at a stage, some people, especially officers didn’t like that style. But, can you compare it with what is happening now?
This man is not a career person and the officers are taking advantage of this opportunity. He only knows what he is told. And he is not allowed to hear of the views of other sides, other stakeholders. As far as the man is consigned, he mostly wants to see what is the revenue generated last month, compared it with what this month has grossed in; and then project how much it could be at the end of December, to justify that yes he is actually cleaning up the place. But, unknown to him, the revenue of would have been better, if not for compromises going on in the port!
Now, in a scenario like this, how do we tackle it?
You cannot tackle it because the agent that is compromising on behalf of his principal is not ready to change his style, since that is where he makes his money! The officer is also not ready to change his style because that is where he makes his money.
Though the agent is not a regulated operator; but the officers are regulated under one person. In fact if they want to sanitize the system now, it may well imply they will end up removing all officers in the port; and then, go and bring people in the officers in the ‘bush’ pursuing smugglers. Ironically, most of them have been in the ‘bush’ for upwards of 15 – 20 years; most of them by now, can’t properly remember how long ago they opened the tariff.
In that respect do we suggest that they change maybe 25 percent at a go?
But how can you advice somebody you don’t even see? Because it is an issue that the past regime used to do that became a matter of envy. At your request, they invite you to come; he calls the senior officers, he calls the Comptrollers; we all sit down. The comptrollers will accuse us of certain infractions. We own up where it is true; but, we always let them know, that we don’t compromise. In fact in our Secretariat today, if you are caught with contraband, you don’t come to this office to report. You don’t; and in fact, once your license is suspended you cannot take part in any of the electoral process of ANCLA. It is to show how important the license and our contributions to make our people more compliant have become. But we also know that there is always in existence, what they call ‘commercial licenses’ issued for people to tout with. It’s given to touts to operate and they pay you. But, it doesn’t exist in ANLCA.
What’s the difference between genuine and commercial licenses?
It’s the same genuine license but you can hire this for people to work with. They come to your office, you give them the particulars and then they give you some money say, N5,000. You will stay in your office; they will use your license to do whatever they want to use it to do. And if there is problem, you carry it.
The good thing however, is that some of those commercial licenses also protected from offset. We have given suggestions as to how is it done elsewhere, we just came back from China and we saw how that works. Once your company is given a license, you are given a GTI with your password. It’s only your password that can take you into Custom’s Server for you to operate anything at all. But here, they operate cyber cafés, which means that the touts who collect commercial license can always go to the cyber café and do the needful. They always claim they are ‘agents’ too, because they deliver the cargo the way you also deliver. Some of them are retired Customs officers, too.
But, is that not a blank endorsement of quack activities?
Don’t let me talk too much, I’ve given you basis. I’ve been in this business for a very long time. If I wanted to make much money, serious money, then I would have been using my position to do that. But I don’t do that. If theirs is an error, genuine error in our declaration and you point it out, I will go back to the importer and tell him, ‘please pay up’. There are officers serving in uniforms who have licenses and they influence how the job is done. There are officers who are importers, who import and clear their goods by themselves and they take decisions in respect of whatever happens. So also are agents too. But, when you find yourself in such scenario, you begin to understand why they don’t want to leave the place they are.
Let’s go off the issue of cargo facilitation, let’s look at a monolithic economy, economy built on oil and the way it is been sabotaged. As a Nigerian, what’s your advice for government?
To be continued tomorow
(Ramadan Kareem!)
