Comrade Obinna Ugochukwu, an activist and a businessman is the Chairman, the Association of Registered Freight Forwarders (AREFF), Onne Port Chapter, in this interview with Jude Nzennaya he bares his mind on the deplorable conditions of road infrastructure leading to Onne Port as well as other recent happening in the seaport
Question: Good morning, may we know you Sir?
ANS: My name is Comrade Obinna Ugochukwu, the chairman Association of Registered Freight forwarders, Chief Executive Officer Sodakin Logistics Agency Limited Onne.
Question: What is your take on the deplorable state of Onne-Eleme road leading to Onne Sea Port where almost all clearing and forwarding agents and importers have their offices?
ANS: My brother, this is nothing but a shame of a nation, it has become a night mare coming to Onne every day to carry out our legitimate activities. This very roads leads to five major companies in the Nigeria,
Refinery 1, Refinery 2, Eleme Petrol chemical, Oil & Gas free zone, Naval School a Security outfit of the country including the Sea Port where federal government of Nigeria generates huge sum of money that runs into billions, as at last year during the former controller of Customs, Comptroller Ibrahim Auwa, he generated more than two hundred and eighty something billion naira that is from Customs alone this year another fresh target has been giving to the new controller, Comptroller Baba Imam of about three hundred and sixty billion naira from Onne Sea Port with this bad road and it is not as if the target cannot be met, in the past years we have met targets and above but we are not seeing the benefits from it as people making use of the road leading to the Sea Port, we the people of this region have not seen anything that shows that such huge amount of money is generated from this area. You can imagine what is happening now on that road our trucks can no longer find it easy accessing the road from trailer park down to refinery junction. You can see lines of trucks part of the major challenge we are facing leading to loss of man hours both those coming to work and going back home you can imagine we spend three to four hours before getting to Onne and we spend another two to three hours while going back and by the time we get to our homes it is about 10pm.
These government is so heartless that they don’t care about sufferings, the federal government generates huge fund from this region but turn blind eyes to our sufferings and you know what in no distance time we are going stage a protest, every one us making use of this road. Look, trucks with containers that have loaded for over five days are still trapped on this very road and the agents are losing deposit on the shipped containers, the truck are been worn out while stucked on the road causing more damages as close to four five trucks fails down on daily bases, when vessels arrives and off loads and won’t be able to go back causing congestion. So, we are calling on government to expedite action, to come and fix this roads even the eleme Petrochemical bridge has become a dead trap.
We are calling on President Bola Amed Tinubu to do something concerning this road and this is not the time to give indigenous contractors or senators the contract we don’t want such again in this region, he should give the contract to Julius berger or any company capable of handling such job and stop giving such contracts to party fellow and acronies it will not help the nation and that is our demand.
Question: You did mention agents, truck drivers and owners, shipping companies coming together for a showdown, what is the plan?
ANS: Yes, we have been meeting and by the time we resolve on how to go about it the whole world will hear our voice.
Question: Are you people are planning to go on strike?
ANS: Yes, you can call it strike or negotiation.
Question: How has the relationship between agents and Comptroller Baba Imam been since he took over the Onne Customs Command?
ANS: sincerely speaking, it has been a cordial one he is the man who knows the ethics of the job, he has worked in Onne before he knows where it pains us again he is an administrator and since his arrival I think we heaved signed of relieve. He is a man who enjoys interactions with the stalk holders looking for a way forward to make sure that operations in Onne gets to a higher level and you can see what he has done so far within a short period of his stay, build a conference and training center where both agents and Customs officers can sit discuss and dialogue over concern issues for solutions and that is the kind of Comptroller we have I commend him and we all are giving him the necessary support to ensure that the area is calm for operation.
Question: What is your take on the low patronage of Eastern Ports, Onne Sea Port especially?
ANS: Yes, we have had series of too many policies that prevailing Onne Sea Port that has made importers look elsewhere for alternative like I said earlier the current Comptroller have been reaching out to importers and agents holding several meetings in other to see that they bring in their goods through Onne Sea Port and the meetings are ongoing but the challenging we face in Onne is that some officers fail to be up and doing, you hear this they cabal is everywhere, some certain officers may be posted down to Onne by some cabals of which they may be taking directives from Abuja, these officers make operations difficult for the command to boom or progress making trade facilitations difficult, they are officers with high handedness and they are in high position causing and making it difficult for clearance of cargos and you know every officer, unit and department has its own duty to perform and when you see a season Customs officer who knows his job who collaborate with the Comptroller, my brother things will move and other importers will come back.
Question: Are you saying that some officers are making the trade facilitation very difficult for the Comptroller?
ANS: Yes, that is what am saying.
Question: Do you think Onne Sea Port stands the chance of recording high patronage with Lekki Sea Port coming on board?
ANS: Well, I am not a politician but when you look at the trend of things, the demolition of Alaba international market, the discrimination by Lagos law makers and Lagos government you will agree with me that it cannot be business as usual. I have the believe that IGBOS who are the major importers of goods in Nigeria are meeting, strategizing, I think the difference won’t be much and I do know government will play their politics which they have always played through freight charges with Lagos having less to that of Eastern Ports one thousand to two thousand plus difference, so, these are the challenges facing Eastern Sea Ports.
Question: I mean will most of the importers making use of Onne port not move to Lekki Sea Port?
ANS: I don’t think so, except there are particular concession they want to give in other to play that politics I just mentioned earlier. look at this way, if you have your shops or market in Onitsha or within why going to Lagos to clear your goods considering the amount involve while tracking your container from Lagos to Onitsha and there is a uniform duty payment by dollar exchange rate frustration, someone called me yesterday from Lagos that he cleared a forty fit container with the overall duty paid of about seven point something million naira and I told him that it is same thing here, so, you can see that going to Lagos or Lekki Port or coming to Onne does not matter but the safety of the goods.
Question: Some agents complain how stressful it is going to Area 1 Port from Onne to sort out documents relating to Strike Force Unit. They say that having such office in Onne could be of help to them, what is your take?
ANS: Yes, well, the strike force is a unity under zonal Command establish by Mohammed Ali’s regimen and the office is at Area 1, yes, we agents are having challenges once there is an alert it will not be entertain except you go to their office at Area 1 where they will look at it, if is DN able they give you DN and if you do not have issues they vacate the alert send the report to the Comptroller and he minutes and send to DC revenue, these actually takes a number of days to handle, as at last week we met with the Comptroller and the issue was table before him and he promise to do something about it to see how agents can pick their cargos on time. You see from documentation to processing and delivery by the time this are done you have already incurred expenses and demurrages, there is this policy the Nigeria Port Authority top mangers want to introduce and we stalk holders have call on them to calm down over such policies as there is no how you can load a trucks with these bad roads and expect it not to breakdown and as much as that happened it must cause obstruction to other road users part of the challenges agents encounters while processing their documents, some time an agent will process documents and get a gate pass only to be told that your truck has an alert either by the strike force or CIU units at the point of leaving or on the high way then that truck driver has no option than to turn back or look for some where to park.
Question: Is it true that you agents and importers kicked against Customs policy of scanning your containers at the Port before they are taken to various bounded warehouses?
ANS: Agents cannot kick against the government policies, Dr. Okonjo Iweala initiated and introduce scanning of containers and it was suppose to be done while off loading from the vessel and stock, by the time you process the documents and your report comes out if there is any infractions they will handle it and if it is okay and through they allow it to go, there is no time agents will say such, what we are talking about is that the one scanner is not enough and cannot take care the whole cargo coming through Onne Sea Port as it causes delay and congestion as agents and importers losses paying demurrages enriching these foreign firms so we are calling on government to get more scanning machine here in Onne Sea Port at least three to four scanning machines to facilitate the jobs within 48 hours which one scanning machine cannot handle, it takes about a week for a container to get out of the Sea Port, which is not healthy for our profession and these are the things that causes inflation as Nigeria continue to lose, where an importer pays more demurrages he infuse it as part of his cost which in turn causes high cost of goods in the market, the earlier the government relialises this the better for her citizens, there are scanners that are bad all the government need to do is to get the vendors and then fixed it, my take.
Question: Do you have bonded terminal, are you aware that most contrabands siezed by the Customs are from the bonded warehouses?
ANS: I don’t have a bonded terminal for now, that information could be false because Customs have all it takes to detect contrabands item before releasing any container, so most of this containers at that back yard could be as a result of some importers that has challenges may be they have no money to clear their goods, in some cases the owners of these containers you see stock at the back are no longer alive and may be the decease importers family may not have the money to get the containers out as most of them make use of banks to facilitate their jobs, in Onne Sea Port I know we don’t deal on contrabands goods.
