Unwholesome food and products get into the country with ease, provoking the question: what are agencies at the ports doing? It is believed that if the agencies are up and doing, such items would not pass through. Assistant Editor Okwy Iroegbu-Chikezie writes.
Fake and substandard products keep streaming into the country despite the army of agencies at the ports. Such products include plastic rice from China, Indian gari, jollof rice, varieties of Nigerian local soups and substandard tyres from China. The substandard tyres estimated at over N5billion were found in a warehouse in Lagos. They have since been seized by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON).
These confiscated products are life- threatening. Observers are calling for the return of critical agencies hitherto removed from the ports in the heat of port reforms to go back to their duty posts to protect the lives of the citizenry.
Following the outrage in the case of the Indian gari, the National Agency for Food Drug Administration Control (NAFDAC) raided the shop located on Cameron Road, Ikoyi, Lagos. The public wondered how it was allowed to enter the country. But NAFDAC came out strongly, stating that the product does not have their number.
“The product has no NAFDAC number. It is said to come from Ghana but packaged in the United Kingdom. The management of the supermarket has been invited for further discussion in our Lagos office and investigation continues,” NAFDAC Acting Director-General, Mrs. Yetunde Oni, said in a message.
Other agencies, such as the SON, have been calling on the government to allow them return to the ports, arguing that it is in the interest of the nation for them to return. They argued that as a result of their critical functions in preventing life-threatening imports, it might not be in the best interest of the nation to be asked to leave the ports with other not so critical agencies.
In the height of Port Reforms of the previous administration, the government banned over 28 agencies, leaving only six to man the ports and ease the port clearance process. Affected in the shake-up, were SON, Directorate of Naval Intelligence, Nigerian Plant Quarantine Services, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency and the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
In an interview with The Nation, SON Director of Monitoring & Compliance, Mr. Bede Obayi, an engineer, said they have a mandate to ensure that whatever is imported complies with the nation’s standards requirements, stressing that it will be a mistake if their services are dispensed with in the name of port reforms.
He said: “We look out for accountability and also ensure that we stop false declaration by importers. We are asking for placement of priority in government policies that will ensure that quality and standards take their pride of place. Our mandate is not to ascertain if an importer has paid duties on his imports but to ensure that what he has imported does not impair the lives of the citizenry.”
Obayi called for efficiency at the ports by canvassing for a window for all regulators at the ports. According to him, the greatest challenge for SON is that of contending with fake bill of lading from importers on daily basis. He recalled how a businessman imported substandard cables which can ignite fire at homes and offices and wrongly labelled them as agriculture equipment. He said it was only when they did a scientific test that they discovered how dangerous the products were.
Few weeks ago, SON also intercepted 60 containers of fake tryes worth N5 billion imported by two Chinese nationals and their collaborators after they had passed the checks at the port. This grave lapse, observers said, was a consequence of not having the right agencies at the point of entry.
During a tour led by the SON’s Director-General, Osita Aboloma, to Alakija, about two million imported tyres were seen in a warehouse beside the popular Navy Town in the area.
According to Aboloma, the Chinese importers, who gave their names as Tanlong Shen and Xu Jing Yao, were bust through inter-agency collaboration and intelligence received from “well-meaning Nigerians” after they had been cleared from the port.
“We acted on the intelligence we received from well-meaning Nigerians. This was achieved as a result of inter-agency collaboration.You can see volume of tyres brought in and you can imagine the implication for our society if these tyres are let into the market,” he said.
The SON chief said the sub-standard tyres which were shipped from China, were post-dated to make them appear road-worthy. He criticised the way the tyres were packaged, noting that it is only SON that knows the implication of the worthiness of the tyres and should have been at the point of entry to disallow it from entering the country in the first place.
“The fact that up to five of them were being tucked into one, with operators using rods to separate them from one another when they reached Nigeria, the tyres will naturally become substandard. This is because in the course of separating them from the squeeze, the wires and geometrics of the tyres will be affected,” he said.
He wielded the big stick, assuring though that they might not be at the ports. The arrested persons would be prosecuted under the new SON Act,” he added.
At a seminar on Port Reforms organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI), former NBA president, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, and discussants criticised the large number of regulatory agencies at the ports, corruption, poor infrastructure and the government’s indecision on implementing robust policies that will drive the sector.
He called for the harmonisation of all regulatory bodies at the ports, stressing the need for one window to remove bottlenecks in ports operations.
LCCI Director of Research and Advocacy, Dr. Vincent Nwani, in his paper titled: “Nigeria: Reforming the maritime sector,” said estimates from the Chamber’s research show that trillions of Naira in revenue is lost yearly within the port and business community as a result of inefficiencies and inherent shortcomings of the nation’s maritime ports.
According to him, unfriendly business environment, such as the situation we have in the ports, continue to undermine the capacity of investors to maximise abundant trade and democratic opportunities in Nigeria.
He noted that 48-hour target set by the government is still far from being achieved.
He said: “Speedy processing of import and export documents by relevant agencies are important elements of trade facilitation process. It is also a major variable in the 2016 World Bank ease of Doing Business ranking in which Nigeria ranked very low at 169 out of 185 countries profiled. This has made it very difficult to achieve any of the port reform objectives set by the past political administration.”
He called for technology and innovative solutions, the establishments of national trade data centre, implementation of a single window platform including the passage of the pending bills at the National Assembly to stimulate the maritime sector.
