Some customs officials have called on their Comptroller General, Hammed Ali, to consult widely especially among members of his management team before taking decisions on promotions and postings.
Speaking against the backdrop of 661 riffles cleared from the port by the command recently, the officers said if the Customs CG had listened to the advice of his management team not to redeploy senior officers when the last promotional list have not been released, the container would not have exited the port.
Recall that the container carrying the cache of arms was cleared at the port but was intercepted at Mile 2 area by officials of the Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, Lagos.
One of the officers who craved anonymity for fear of punishment since he was not authorized to speak with journalists, told SHIPS & PORTS DAILY that of the 19 Deputy Comptrollers working at various terminals under the Apapa Command, 13 had been redeployed leaving only 6, which he said were insufficient for the size of the operation under the command.
“Apapa command presently has only six Deputy Comptrollers (DCs) as against 19 we had before and the work load is still the same at the command. If everybody was in position, then the container will not have exited the port.
“All the DCs have four groups and the group in that particular terminal would have known if the container was examined or not but because they are few, they could no longer form the group.
“On the day the job was released; we had just two females on duty and when the agents noticed this gap, they also take advantage of it.
“This means we will only have six DCs working in the command until they release the promotion list but they cannot even release it now because there is no board,” he said.
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