Wednesday, 6 September 2023

MACI flays maritime police over interception of exited cargo

MACI flays maritime police over interception of exited cargo
By: Bisi Akingbade

The Media Anti-Corruption Initiative (MACI) has expressed its worry over the overbearing attitude of maritime police in cargo clearing procedure at the ports.

The group noted with concern that this attitude of the police in indiscriminately intercepting cargo exited by the Customs at the ports has caused unnecessary bad blood between the Maritime Police and other government agencies whom the police have accused of compromise in cargo clearing process at the ports.

In a statement issued by the Chairman Board of Trustees( BOT) of the group, Captain Adamu Mshelia and the Secretary, Mr Funso Olojo, MACI believes that the attitude of the police was predicated on misunderstanding of the role of the maritime police by its top officials.

"All the agencies operating in the ports, including the police,  are backed by law with specific functions, though there are some cases of overlapping functions.

"The police is to maintain law and order, make arrest where necessary and prosecute offenders.

"Its the statutory duty of Customs to release cargo after satisfactory inspection of documents by its officers and where necessary, physical examination with other agencies. 

"We know that four units of police namely K9, Bomb squad, Intelligence Unit and normal police do participate in cargo examination. 

"We then wonder what Maritime police will be looking for after four of its units have participated in the examination of cargo.

"For checks and balances, Customs management created other units like enforcement, CIU, Taskforce, Strike Force, etc. 

"These are units trained and well versed in interpretation of codes, value determination, classification, concealment, wrong declaration and what have you. 

"Even the Customs management has come to the realization that some of these units are only mere duplication of duties, hindering trade facilitation, hence the recent scrapping of Strike Force and reduction of checkpoints.

"The maritime police has its duty and we believe that no agency is stopping it from carrying it out. The only argument is modality for doing their job. 

"We know that police have the right to enter anywhere and if it has information about a container, it can trace it to the owner's warehouse.

"This is the acceptable way of working in saner climes and this is what other agencies are telling maritime police to do.

"MACI feels embarrassed by the jejune and puerile allegations from the AIG Maritime Police, Susan Akem-Horsfall that the agencies are conniving with shippers and their clearing agents to shortchange government.

"This is clearly an allegation meant to justify the unjustifiable.

"We are miffed by AIG's defence of the indefensible that nobody can stop police from stopping containers on the road.

"Maritime police is not being stopped from doing its legitimate work but what everyone is saying is that police should not cause another congestion and interfere unnecessarily with international trade with the indiscriminate and unwarranted interception of exited cargo on the road when the police can trail such suspected consignment to the warehouse of its owners", the group which is the media coalition against corruption, declared.

The group therefore  called on the Inspector general of police,  Kayode Egbetokun,  to call the AIG, Maritime Police to order with a warning to tell her officers to  strictly face police duty as only Customs officers are trained on classification, interpretation of codes, value determination, concealment, etc.

MACI also believes that the timely intervention of the IGP will stave off the brewing crisis and allow the contending issue resolved amicably in order to have a concerted efforts towards  proper  management of  the emerging blue economy.

"We believe that government has committed so much resources to decongesting the ports and facilitating trade and therefore unnecessary man-made encumbrances should not be given a space," the group concluded.