WE SHOULDN’T EAT OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE TODAY – Nnadi mni

By Okey IROEGBU 

Comptroller Dera Nnadi mni is seriously showcasing the stuff he is made of with the revenue strides he and his officers are making at Tincan Island command. The Customs Area Controller who turned things around before he left Seme a while ago has seriously turned the revenue generation at Tincan command also. While receiving members of the League of Maritime Editors in his office at Tincan, he expressed his joy over the relationship that has existed between the members of League and himself. He went into sweet memory lane on some past activities between him and many of the members of this body. On his duties at the command which centered primarily on revenue generation, the workaholic Customs Area Controller confirmed that when they took over the mantle of leadership at the command, the revenue was at 52% remaining 48% of the N801Billion annual revenue target for the command. This was for the relatively short period remaining for the fiscal year to come to an end. It could be noted that Comptroller Nnadi mni took over in Tincan command on Thursday, September 14, 2023.  He 

confirmed that through hard work by his officers and the compliant stakeholders, they were able to reduce the percentage of the revenue generation to 37% at the end of September. He went further to say that on resumption at the command the daily target set for the command was N3.3Billion. Through diligence, they were able to set their own target at N5.2Billion which his officers promised to achieve.

According to him, the intention as he rightly put it in a proverb is that "if you are aiming to get to the top of a tree, you better aim at getting to the moon. If you cannot make the moon, you will definitely get to the tree top." Their self-imposed revenue target did the magic as they were working hard to meet this target which they finally did and even surpassing it to the tone of N9.2Billion collected in a day recently. In all, he confirmed that his officers are working round the clock to achieve this. He thanked the industry critical stakeholders but did not fail to categorize them into three viewpoints representing the freight forwarders who work for these importers. "We have the very compliant ones ... we have those who are not compliant out of ignorance, whenever we call for meetings, whenever we educate them, they’re very willing to change and do the right thing. We have received the cooperation of the first and the second.”He went ahead to discuss the third set which actually is one of the challenges they face at the command. These are very obstinate and stubborn category. They are never ready to be compliant and in most cases they in this category makes the loudest noise against any government policy.“The first are enjoying fast track, the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR just launched Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) policy for them, we have quite a number of them.  We also have those who are willing to do it right out of ignorance or lack of opportunity they didn’t do it, we have also been encouraging them, they are also doing it.“But we have very few who are recalcitrant, who will never, no matter what you do, change. These are the most vocal ones, unfortunately. For every policy you want to introduce, they are the ones that will say anything, mislead the press just to create confusion.”Comptroller Nnadi mni at this juncture pleaded with the foremost maritime media operators to help out in their agenda setting and gate keeping to seriously educate these non-compliant and many others against de-marketing the country as this will definitely affect the economy of the nation. “There is something I told those I held meeting with yesterday, I said for every negative opinion you express about this our industry and get the media to write, you de-market this industry.  So when we say do it right and you run to the media and say all manners of things, the ports are not working, customs is killing us, tariffs are so high, they are killing business, the media must write, it is their duty to write. “And that is why I always appeal rather than throwing blames here and there, can we talk in-house to address some of these challenges? Because in the meeting we held yesterday, with stakeholders and other government agencies on the challenges of multiple interventions in cargo clearing process, I told them it is an embarrassment that close to 20 years we are still discussing the same issue. “If you bring 100 containers and examine them, and then I return verdict that you complied, duty was paid correctly, items imported are correct, I expect the next batch of PAAR that will come to be green. So I asked them yesterday, how come every PAAR  issued, over 70percewnt or more still turns out to be red over the years and yet you complain that there are interventions in the system. Ants will only go to where there is sugar.“So I talked to them yesterday, I said please 

can we talk to our importers to do the right thing so we can change this narrative? Let our risk levels tend towards green, even for the few that we said okay, there are some reasonable grounds not to be suspected go to the orange, yellow for scanning.  All of you were here when I was in NIPPS, almost every newspaper report was ‘give us scanners, give us scanners’, now the scanners have been brought, people are saying the scanners are delaying, we don’t want to go to scanners…so  I asked them, what do you people really want?“I am very passionate about this industry and we need to interrogate issues, I am making this appeal because I know you are elders in maritime reporting, let us face reality, let us say the truth, forget about personal considerations and think about the industry; we shouldn’t eat our children’s future today.”