The President of ANLCA, Hon. Iju Tony Nwabunike making a point during the press conference.
Story by Dili Utomi.
The national executive committee of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) yesterday organised a press conference to review relevant events over the past year and to share their thoughts on burning issues.
The head of the national executive committee of the association who also doubles as the president of the Association, Honourable Iju Tony Nwabunike and the members of his committee addressed the press at the Dikko Inde House secretariat of the association. Mr. Nwabunike noted that “The year 2021 as you know was the second year of the global pandemic. Recall that freight forwarders and customs brokers were declared as essential workers to keep performing their roles through the period of the lockdown in 2020 and the period that it was relaxed”. The perennial revenue targets being given to the Nigeria Customs Service did not escape the criticism of the association as the president said of the #4.1trillion revenue target to the NCS for 2022 “Giving these seemingly outrageous targets will undermine the productivity of the overall economy. The high target will place the NCS under pressure of high revenue collection and undermine the trade facilitation role the service should render”.
More pictures of the high table, during the Press conference.
He noted that pursuing bigger revenue and failing to strengthen trade results in greater losses to the country as investments are either threatened, reduced or made non existent as the association also advised the federal government to be careful before signing the $3.1billion Customs modernisation project which is said to run for 20 years.
The Association used the opportunity to call on the federal government to include it’s members in some of the government’s committees.
A cross section of pressmen.
During the question and answers session, the issue of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) election came up and the patron of the association who is also the vice chairman of the governing board of the Council, Chief Henry Njoku said that the meeting that was scheduled to hold in December with the Minister for transport over the matter could not hold, but that a new date where the modalities and time table for the election would be discussed will soon be made known to the board.
On the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the President expressed his fear for Nigeria becoming a dumping ground for goods manufactured in other countries as the government seem not to be ready for the 54 member country free trade area. Honourable Nwabunike said that he personally spoke with the President of the South African Customs Brokers Association and that he said that they have about 17 products to showcase for the AfCFTA and that by the time the trade area comes into full force, the exporting of these products will bring about a big trade surplus for South Africa.
Mr. Nwabunike projects that the Association will be focused on improved professionalism, increasing the capacity of the Nigerian Customs Brokers for local and international trade under the AfCFTA and matching human capacity with technology for better results.
Honourable Nwabunike while fielding questions also said that members are being trained to embrace ICT, go paperless and to increase and sustain their compliance levels in order to be able cope with the dictates of modern ways of doing business most especially in the face of the covid-19 pandemic and it’s attendant mutations and pervasiveness. He called on the management team of the Nigeria Customs Service to improve in the automation of its services and to expedite action in training the needed manpower to man the recently acquired scanners in order that efficiency will be entrenched within the operation of the NCS.
On the incoming celebration of the World Customs Organisation (WCO), the president said that the desire of this world body is that certain principles which promote proper trade are entrenched. He enumerated these as free flow of information e.g the 41 items marked as not qualified to access foreign exchange, he listed other principles as ICT compliance and proper trade facilitation.
On the attempt at finding a lasting solution to the internal wranglings within the association, the president asked the Association’s general secretary to speak on the result of their peace initiative so far. The secretary, Mr. Babatunde Mukaila Abdulaziz itemized the list of demands made by the other faction that is currently battling to seize power from the current national executive committee and at the end the demands were described as ridiculous as president said that the list of demands will be sent to their lawyer for proper legal advice. It is a well known thing that the battle for the soul of the Association has been raging since the election of Honourable Nwabunike as the president with a faction led by the erstwhile chairman of the outgone board of trustees, Mr. Taiwo Mustapha refusing to leave as board members and trying to cling on to power by all means claiming that their tenure only started the day they were registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), a claim that has been punctured by the action of the CAC withdrawing the registration certificate as they said that the registration has been done in error.
In conclusion, Mr Nwabunike enjoined all to keep up the spirit of jointly building a more productive and peaceful Nigeria.
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