Customs/Agents rift: Collapse of relationship built on mutual suspicion.

The Nigeria Customs Service and Customs brokers are two halves of the same coin with a symbiotic relationship.

The two need each other to perform optimally.

While the Customs needs the agents in its quest to enhance its revenue profile, the agents cannot take out the goods of their principals (Importers) from the Customs’ ports without the clearance and endorsement of the Customs.

So the two are like half -brothers whose relationship is built on mutual understanding for business transactions.

That is why the agents are licensed by the customs to transact business at its (Customs) ports on behalf of their principals.

So the relationship is circumstantial based on mutual business interests.

More often than not, this relationship has come under threats that usually strained it.

While Customs wants to collect its revenue maximally, the agents would want to take out their boxes from the Customs’ ports with minimal payment, a point of divergence that often results to friction.

Such friction occurred penultimate week when a group of customs brokers flared up and gave the Customs authority 72-hours ultimatum to correct some of the infractions they claimed the agency committed in the clearance procedures.

The group, which styles itself, concerned freight forwarders in the western zone, complained of multiple layers of goods clearance by Customs which they claimed was meant to extort money from them.

According to them, apart from the residents units known to the CEMA laws, the Customs Authority, led by Col.Hameed Ali(rtd) has introduced multiple numbers of tax force teams whose officers, they claimed, have usurped the duties of the residents officers, thus complicating the Customs clearing process.

On its side, the Customs justified this ad-hoc system on the need to checkmate the rampant abuse of clearing process by the freight forwarders who are said to have compromised the resident officers.

The nigeriamaritime360.com is worried by this apparent collapse in the symbiotic relationship between the Customs and its brokers.

Our worries are accentuated by the belief that it is only a cordial working relationship between the two ‘half-brothers’ that can guarantee peaceful and seamless clearance system at the ports.

Such disagreement which often leads to disruption of clearing process does not augur well for our port operations.

However, these ‘skirmishes’, as unacceptable as they are, have thrown up some salient points in the current customs clearance procedures.

We frown at the use of task forces in the Customs clearance procedures at the ports.

Notwithstanding the excuses or justification the Customs may want to adduce to legitimise this move, it does not obtain in the modern customs operations which primary purpose is to facilitate trade.

Multiple layers of checks will not only impede trade as they are likely to lead to avoidable delays but they will militate against Nigeria’s quest for 48-hour clearance time.

We believe that the Federal Operations Units of the service whose sphere of operations covers the whole customs commands in the country are enough checks and deterrent against any abuse of clearing process.

Such ad-hoc units like CG Strike force, Customs police, Compliance team, Surveillance team, Information team and the like are not only superfluous but are too many cooks that spoil the broth.

The action of the Customs helmsman is an eloquent testimony that he has lost confidence and faith in his resident officers who man different stages of goods clearance.

The CG may not be blamed if the level of his confidence in these men has plummeted as they may have rightly been compromised by the customs brokers, most of whose moral fibre is weak and have no scruples.

This explains the incessant discoveries of many infractions found with goods already cleared from the ports.

However, we suggest that rather than unleashing this avalanche of multiple ad-hoc teams on the system whose officers have come to complicate clearing process through their excesses, the CG and his team should identify and sanction erring resident officers as well as strengthen the FOU units for efficient services.

The horde of resident and ad-hoc customs officers swarming on containers at the ports and on the roads like bees are not only embarrassing to our port operation system but further entrenches a culture of impunity and corruption that has given our ports an unenviable sobriquet of being the costliest within the sub-region.

It further negates and hobbles the federal government desire to engender the ease of doing business at the port.

The emphasis in the 21st century is for Customs to facilitate legitimate trade and not to impede smooth and quick clearance of goods through multiple layers of trade obstacles.

However, the Customs brokers should not be absorbed from this absurdity.

They are the direct cause why the Customs authority has to resort to this unorthodox method of checking their frequent infractions and gross abuse of the clearing process.

An average Customs broker has no scruples in his business transactions.

He is ready to compromise even the devil to get his boxes out of the ports.

He does not want to pay duties even after he has over-charged the unsuspecting importer hence his unrepentant knack for cutting corners.

It is his propensity for abuse of clearing process that makes him collude with his likes in the Customs who equally have weak moral fibre.

Such criminal collusion and compromise of relevant customs officers has often led to revenue haemorrhage.

We are tempted to think that it is when such inordinate alliance breaks down that the agents usually cry wolves and resort to blackmail to force the hands of the Customs authority.

But whenever the two parties are having a ball, there would be a conspiratorial silence.

We condemn in the strongest terms the shameless passion of an average customs broker to cut corners in the clearance procedures, an oddity which has become his pastime he routinely does.

We strongly advise the leadership of different freight forwarding groups to embark on massive education and sensitisation of their members on the need to comply with the extant laws governing proper clearance procedures.

This will not only enhance their trade but lead to quick clearance and evacuation of goods.

Regrettably, the unwholesome practices of some of these unscrupulous customs brokers have smeared the good image and reputation of few honest ones who are in their fold.

Sadly too, the infractions and flagrant abuses to which the clearing process is subjected by these unscrupulous customs brokers has often justified some of the excessive actions of Customs authority.

The practice of resorting to strike action each time the Customs brokers have an issue with the Customs authority will not solve the problem if the agents do not embrace attitudinal change towards clearance procedures.

This is why we are convinced that the present action by the so called concerned freight forwarders in the western zone is an exercise in futility as it will not yield any meaningful results unless the agents change their crooked ways.

We are amused to note that the concerned freight forwarders in the western zone who are agitating to go on the aborted strike failed to examine themselves and find where they too erred.

Rather, they gleefully placed all the blames of the infractions in the process of goods clearance on the Customs.

That is why we are least surprised that the purported strike action fell flat on its face as cracks in the alliance soon became noticeable.

Sensing the futility of a strike action at this time when government is striving to make our port system attractive, the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders(NAGAFF), one of the component members of the coalition, reportedly pulled out of the group.

The only strong affiliate association in the pack, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents(ANLCA) holds no real value to the group as it is presently hobbled by intra-association conflict it is currently embroiled in.

The other associations of lesser stature still left in the coalition pose no threat to the customs authority.

The purported intervention of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) in the aborted strike action was a mere saving grace to the already decapitated group.

We therefore understand why the action of the group of the agitating freight forwarders is not popular and does not enjoy the overwhelming support of the entire freight forwarding confraternity .

We call on the agitators not to embark on the wild goose chase but rather conduct a self-audit of their activities and actions in the clearance procedures.

We believe that if the agitating freight forwarders play by the rules, the Customs may not have the alibi to resort to unorthodox method of checking their (clearing agents) abuse of clearing process.

We also enjoin the Customs officers, especially the resident ones, to resist the inordinate temptation of colluding with unscrupulous agents for pecuniary gains.

If the officers do not offer themselves as willing tools of compromise, the agents will have no option than to play by the rules while the few deviants on both sides could easily be identified and sanctioned.

We believe that if both parties observe the sanctity of the extant rules and guidelines on customs declarations and clearance procedures, goods clearance and delivery system would be quick and efficiently seamless, leading to the attainment of the elusive 48-hour clearance time at our ports.