FLOODING: NAGAFF Tasks Mid Maritime Services To Upgrade Facilities

The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Presidential Compliance Team on Wednesday, called on bonded terminal operator, Mid Maritime Service Limited to address issues of flooding at it facility saying it’s unhealthy for trade facilitation.

National Coordinator of the Compliance Team, Alhaji Tanko Ibrahim who disclosed this during the flag off to commands and bonded terminals ,urged management of the terminal to up the ante in furtherance to compete favourably with other operators.

The National Coordinator stated, that :“The flooding is not good for operation, I complained about that and they promised to discuss that with their MD. They gave me the phone number of the MD but I rejected the number.

“I did that because of their initial approach to us but they said that they are going to talk to their MD about our visit and promised that their MD will call me on phone.”

 

 

While addressing newsmen further, Tanko noted that the visit was necessitated by some people who according to him “call themselves owners of this place and may be helping to do the wrong thing here”, who insisted that NAGAFF’s Compliance Team would not be domiciled at the terminal which he said had succeeded in resolving.

He disclosed that the DC Terminal had agreed to work with them adding that he (DC Terminal) even communicated with the founder of NAGAFF, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam and promised to work with him.

He added, “But I told him, whether he wants to work with us or not, we are here to work with him and we are here to help the government which he promised to work with us.

“The terminal operator that was trying to reject us, later on accepted us too partially but they said that they were going to give me a call today or tomorrow. So, I believe it has been resolved now.”

On his findings at the terminal, he said, “I was here before, they have equipment, they have about five to six standard forklifts and their land, you can see the premises, the place is okay but what we are trying to find out which I cannot say for now is their charges but I have told my members to give me some of their debit notes let me go through and see what their charges are like.”

 

When asked to comment on the little disagreement between his members and the terminal security officials, he said, “We are here together with you people, did we fight anybody here? We did not fight anybody here but let me tell you one thing here, anybody seeing compliance team will see us as enemies.

” It is left for us to explain to that person that we are not enemies; we are only trying to do the right thing. It is a gradual process, you know most of us are doing the wrong thing and they enjoy doing the wrong thing. In fact, let me tell you, even some of our members are fighting us because we are telling them to do the right thing.

“It’s a gradual process, you can see what happened now, they were trying to even refuse us, at the end of the day, what happened? They accepted us and when they heard from us, they promised to work with us.”

 

 

Mid Maritime Service Limited is a bonded terminal located at Tin Can Island Port with a recent Memorandum of Understanding with SIFAX Group.

 

By Roland Ekama