Port Task Team seizes two containers of product samples illegally collected by Customs, others at port

…. Co-opt MWUN as member

 The Port Standing Task Team (PSTT) said it has seized two containers of product samples illegally collected by officials of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and other government agencies involved in cargo inspection at the port in the last one month.

This is just as the task team has co-opted the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) as member of the team in an effort aimed at reducing corrupt practices and unethical behaviours at the ports.

National Coordinator of the task team, Moses Fadipe disclosed this on Tuesday when he paid a working visit to the national secretariat of MWUN in Lagos.

Fadipe said officials of Customs and other government agencies use dockworkers to convey product samples mostly in commercial quantities without returning them to the cargo owners.

Noting that there is need for the union to work with the task team, Fadipe appealed to dockworkers not to allow themselves to be used by government officials to pilfer cargo under the guise of collecting samples.

He said, “Everyday in the terminals, government officials go home with samples. Yes, we know some agencies that can take samples and we know the quantity they should carry. But what we are seeing is what we call commercial quantities and you will never see those officers carrying it themselves, they use dockworkers to carry it. Please we are begging you don’t carry for anybody.

“We have met with the Customs highest body and at the command level and we have told them nobody will carry samples for your officers. So, we are begging the dockworkers, please don’t carry samples for anybody. We made seizures in the last month and the seizure has filled two 1/20 feet containers to the brim. Every day we seize samples from these government officials.

“When we seize from your members, we give them forms to fill and ask them to call the government officials, but you will never see them come back again. But we are reaching a stage now that the person we caught with a sample will not be let free. We will not even tell the person to go and call the Customs, we will do the necessary thing we are supposed to do. So please, if any Customs officials call you to get samples, tell them the port standing task team coordinator has said, you cannot carry samples and if you want to be victimized because of that, please get back to your secretariat, and they will get back to us.”

President General of MWUN, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, who lamented how dockworkers are being used by government officials to perpetrate illegal acts at the ports, appealed to members of the union not to allow themselves to be used by government officials.

“Don’t allow anybody to use you against yourselves while Customs or other government officials will ask you to go and take samples for them. That has stopped today. The samples they are taking is giving us bad names whereas ours is to offload and unload cargoes. Why will somebody ask you to steal for him?

“You have heard from the authorities today that Customs or any relevant agency asking you to take samples for them, please do not do that again, if you have been doing that.  You are not the owner of that cargo so we are not going to accept that,” he said.

Adeyanju, thanked the task team coordinator for co-opting MWUN into the team, assuring that the union will work with and support the task team to succeed in its mandate.

Noting that Nigerian dockworkers have been reformed, Adeyanju said the era of drug trafficking no longer exists among dockworkers just as he warned that anyone caught involved in drug trafficking will lose his membership of the union.

He said there is also a need for the National Drug Law Agency (NDLEA) to partner with the union in the fight against drug trafficking.

“The dockworkers of today are reformed and we are a responsible union. So, we will give you the task team the maximum support that is required.

“For the union today, the era of trafficking drugs is not in our dictionary and turning the port upside down in the name of unionism is no longer allowed. We are transformed and respected union leaders today. So, there is no way the leadership of the union will support any illegality. We will not support anything that has to do with trafficking of drugs at the port.

“So, any of our members caught with illicit drugs either by accomplice joining the cartels trafficking drugs will cease to be our members because our wage is enough and even if it is not, we make sure that we improve on it every two years,” he said.

The PSTT is a creation of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, Nigerain Ports Authority  (NPA), Department of State Security (DSS), and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC). The team is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that standard procedures are followed by concerned parties in carrying out transactions at the port.