Ojo Peter Akintoye, ANLCA chairman, Apapa.
Story by Dili Utomi
The newly sworn in Chairman of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, Tin Can Island chapter, Mr. Ojo Peter Akintoye has spoken about his lofty dreams and aspirations for the premier Customs brokerage association in Nigeria. Mr. Akintoye while speaking to www.greatalternativenigerianetwork.com.ng stated that the visions and missions of his administration centre on the welfare and prosperity of the members of his association and of course the tackling of the operational challenges that they are facing by making the environment more conducive for members and all licensed customs agents within the area of his jurisdiction.
He commended all the past chairmen of the chapter for the foundations that they have laid, but also wishes to be able to carve a niche for himself and make huge progress in the all round administration of the chapter.
On the issue of tackling the ever present challenges facing licensed customs agents., he opined that there needs to be first and foremost self cleansing within the profession and again, programmes of self improvement like trainings, seminars and workshops should be carried out to improve knowledge through capacity building to better equip the brokers on the dynamics of the profession. He says that “if we are fully aware of what we are doing, I am fully sure that we will have less problems in carrying out our business in terms of competition and in terms of dealing with the the Customs”. “These will also of course engender professionalism within the system, the trainings would have given members the reason to want to help themselves and also help the government in their own duty of revenue generation through the Customs in terms of proper and honest declaration and brokers not allow things that would cause problems for us all”.
He further stated that we all know that things are changing and so he thinks that there are better compliance now than we hitherto had about ten to fifteen years past and this could be attributed to improved knowledge and more professionalism in the system, but we need to keep improving everyday as better ways of doing business keeps revealing itself.
On the limitation to Apapa Port on Export, the chairman noted that though the Nigeria Ports Authority may have its reasons, but he does not think that it is a good idea, but guessed that it is because of the issue of the nature of the roads and the perennial traffic situation all over the ports. The government he said should prioritise the repair of all Port access roads in order to help ease traffic and for better business environment. The use of barges seems to have cushioned the negative effect of the road traffic jam, but a lot more needs to be done in the area of multimodal means of moving goods and services as this will definitely bring down the cost of doing business.
On the security situation in the country, he advised that the government should pay attention to the issue of security as the volume of business is affected by the worsening security situation.
