Follow Us on Google
By Steve Agbota
A shipping magnate and former President of Association of National Licensed and Customs Agents (ANLCA), Mr. Tony Nwabunike, has warned that the $3.2 billion Customs modernisation project will worsen Nigeria’s economic situation and enslave the citizens in repayment for 20 years, if the deal scales through.
Nwabunike who spoke with Daily Sun in an interview, decried the challenge of poor basic infrastructure, inadequate investment in port related technology and corruption across the nation’s Ports.
He added that if Customs takes $3.2 billion loan for modernisation alone, Immigration takes such huge loan and other agencies do same, it would amount to mortgaging the future of the country.
He said,“I spoke against that deal in 2021. The desperation of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s government and immediate past Customs Controller General Col. Hameed Ali, pushed into the deal was worrisome. “Ask yourself, where on earth is $3.2 billion being borrowed to modernise Customs for a heavily indebted country like Nigeria? I won’t dwell much on it because the matter is in court and very controversial but let me say this again that you can automate the entire public service system with that amount.
“Before Hameed Ali came, Nigeria Customs was already modernised and have gone paperless. All we need do was to upgrade areas that requires improvement because technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and even the latest ChatGPT evolves and keep improving”.
He hinted that Federal Government already had a robust Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System (NICIS) that was up and running with many government agencies getting hooked up to through seamless integration, adding that there was no reason to drop it.
“$3.2 billion modernisation project won’t help us, it will worsen our economic situation and enslave us in repayment for 20 years. That is two decades of debt in an uncertain international business climate where we rely only on crude oil sales whose price fluctuates,” he cautioned.
On the nation’s Port challenges, he wondered why the Federal Government cannot fix the infrastructure in the ports that generation revenue on daily basis.
He said from Apapa alone, the Federal Government makes an average of N17 billion every 24 hours, adding that just recently in August 2023, one command of Customs announced N10 billion revenue collection in one day.
“Other commands are there, NPA, NIMASA, FIRS and others are collecting different taxes and fees for government within the port area. Where are these monies going? Why are are we not fixing the goose that lays the golden eggs?
“Similar collections and increasing revenue figures are being posted by these agencies. There is no excuse not to fix port infrastructure. In the real sense, we don’t need a loan to fix it. We don’t need to grant any company tax holiday to fix our port access road,” he said.
He stated that all the roads linking Nigerian ports to town are in very deplorable state and has become a huge embarrassment.
He said move around to Apapa, Onne, Calabar, Warri and even the recently constructed Lekki Deep Seaport, the whole roads are nothing to talk about.
“We talked so much about state of disrepair of Apapa port access road more than 20 years ago when former President Olusegun Obasanjo was in charge. Two decades later, we are still on the same issue.
“This clearly confirms that our government is interested in the revenue from the ports but not making commensurate investments to sustain those critical national economic assets.
As at 2013 the Port of Tema in Ghana, which is relatively smaller in size had already emplaced technology for access control where only properly identified and authorised persons can access. In 2023, we are still struggling with access control in Nigeria and far from getting it right,” he lamented.
he said.
