The New Man At Customs And The Task Ahead

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Fenny Fwa

customs-logo3If there is any appointment made by PMB that more than excites me is the new man in the helm of affairs in the customs service. Hammeed Ibrahim Ali has earned a reputation as Mr. incorruptible. It will therefore not be out of place to caution the Customs workforce notorious for its penchant for corruption that has eaten deeply its fabric to shape up or they will shop out.  If there is any broom in APC that sweeps corruption, then it’s in the hands of Col Hameed Ibrahim Ali. He will sweep the custom until the filth in Customs Service is virtually swept out. The man is allergic to corruption. In fact I thought he was going to handle EFFC, but In view of the importance of this revenue generating agency in growing our economic in terms of raising tariffs and clearing imported and exported goods and services, the appointment of this man will have the desired impact.

The incorruptibility of the man has become a reference point in PMB kitchen cabinet to the extent that the president was quoted to have said that his disdain to corruption pales to insignificance when compared to that of Hammed. So the czar of anti-corruption even defers to the new boss in the helm of affairs in Custom house.

Despite his abhorrence to corruption, the man requires other equally important credentials to run an efficient and productive Custom service.

Being a greenhorn in the organization, he would need a consortium of highly knowledgeable and experienced people in the industry to get results.

Based on my commonsensical knowledge of the industry, the man needs a template to tackle these challenges of the industry. The template may include these observations.

Clearing goods have become a nightmare because the men of the service and other agencies need their Palms to be greased before goods are cleared. This particular unit of the custom service at Sea and airports need to be overhauled, bringing people that are competent and productive. The new boss must give his men maximum hours or days to get goods cleared. Failure to do that within the stipulated time will attract sanctions

Closely linked with this is the acquisition of  state of the art equipment and gadgets for fast and efficient  clearance. This is of paramount importance because when this sophisticated equipment are acquired, our ports and will be decongested and goods and services will be delivered with minimum delay thereby enhancing our economic growth.

The regime of waivers used indiscriminately by successive regimes to import goods in the country thereby depriving the federation of the desired revenue should be halted. Waivers are to be used to exempt goods that will promote our local production.

Our porous land borders must be reinforced and overhauled so that smuggled goods that undermine the growth of our local industries and deprive the country of the needed revenue of taxes from unprohibited goods.

Tariffs and other taxes collected by the service should be well laid out and meticulously implemented to rake in additional funds.

As a trained soldier, the man knows the importance of intelligence gathering before going  to  a battle. The intelligence unit of the service here is very important for the purpose of identifying those that are bent on circumventing the operations of the Service so that their activities are checkmated. Similarly the activities of officers and men of the service are perpetually put on search light so that unscrupulous elements are apprehended and brought to book.

The planning research and statistic department is extremely important and, therefore, needs to be reorganized in information and data compilation and thereafter the eventual collation. Based on the collation done, the service then prepares an articulate, comprehensive and implementable template that will bring about the service achieving its declared goals and objectives with minimum hitches

The performance of personnel of this service leaves much be desired in terms of transparency and accountability. Unproductive, indolent, corrupt and incompetent officers have to be identified and must give way for cleaner, neater, efficient and well-focused personnel. Adequate training in the modern management of Customs service must be put in place to improve the capability and capacity of officers and also further enhance their performance using the newly acquired modern equipment.

I’m pretty sure the new man in charge will definitely improve service delivery in custom, giving his anti-corruption pedigree. However, that credential is not enough to give this important agency a new lease of life. A very comprehensive template to turn around the fortune of the organization must be put in place. As a greenhorn in the industry, he needs a consortium of experienced and tested Hands in the field to implement his agenda. I wish him good luck in the onerous task ahead of turning the fortunes of this money spinning organization -.being second only to the  NNPC in revenue generation to the federation.

Fenny J Fwa

Ministry of Information,

Yola

 

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