By Uzor Odigbo
The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has charged all its members in the logistics and supply chain industry to arm themselves with the import guidelines and procedures so as to enable them discharge their duties creditably.
The National President of ANLCA, Chief Iju Tony Nwabunike who gave the charge in an interview in Lagos advised them to carry on their jobs according to import procedures and guidelines insisting that “by the time we do all these things, you will find out that we won’t have reasons to give or take any bribe.”
Nwabunike pointed out that by the time licensed customs agents were well trained, “they will begin to be self-regulated and by the time we are not seriously pushed to the wall to give bribes, nobody wants to give bribe, nobody wants to path with the little money he has but what we see at the Wharf is persuasive bribing and corruption.
“And if that is the way forward, if anybody holds you to ransom, that is why we are here to escalate it so that the federal government will know who is the clog in the progress of our freight forwarding business and maritime industry.”
He added, “Then again, our associations should know that we are not just there just because we want to associate with ourselves but that the welfare of our members, many times, our members do not have insurance, we need to let them know that they have to insure their lives, to know that sometimes, we are the weeping child of this stake holding business where even the truck owners are holding us to ransom, government agencies are holding us to ransom yet we are the most abused stakeholders in the industry. Why? Because we are the custodians of all the things that the clients are coming for and everybody wants to share from the cake.
“So, we need to know that it is no more business as usual at the ports, we need to do things the way they should be, according to CEMA. Then we need to carry ourselves in a more professional manner so that we can compete with our counterparts across the world.”
On his new year message to ANLCA members, the National President state that “They should be law abiding citizens, do things according to import guidelines and procedures and more importantly, pay their duty and avoid everything that will take them to the cleaners. We will defend you when you are right and correct, we will make sure that our position as association executives is used to protect our own and their businesses from the hands of those quacks. More importantly, they should remain focused.”