King Shipping boss commends Customs for vigilance

In three years, King Shipping Trading Maritime Services has burgeoned to an international investment company with a staff strength exceeding 100 and flairs in shipping, trading , clearing and forwarding, oil and gas and offices in Lagos Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Benin Republic, Niger and Angola.

The company’s Chief Executive Officer , Bob-Chukwuma Hyacent is a marine engineer with an unalloyed mission to promote King Shipping to the pinnacle of Africa’s most successful and most quoted multinational blue chip companies.

Chukwuma however noted ruefully some obstacles on his path to achieving his lofty dreams for King Shipping in Nigeria. He said that bad attitude, rather than brawn, is the bane of the Nigerian maritime sector especially customs trade facilitation. “In other African countries like Ghana, Togo, Angola where King Shipping operates, Customs clearing operations are done with due respect to laid down rules.

Bob-Chukwuma however commended the Nigeria Customs Service for its vigilance and high sense of efficiency and professionalism in spite of a very difficult environment in which it operates.
Chukwuma, a longstanding customs agent and investor made this commendation in Lagos last week in a chat with PortNews. He noted that Nigeria Customs men have had to be extremely vigilant and meticulous because of the dubious attitude and pranks of some customs agents and importers.

“It is not easy to be a customs officer in Nigeria with a lot of responsibilities placed on your shoulder by the federal government in terms of revenue generation. You discover that some importers ( in collaboration with their agents) would make false example, a person imports a different goods from what he is supposed to import, this gives the customs the leverage to do what they like. Either they seize the cargo or impose a heavy fine. You now label customs as bad or unfair.

“So the blame goes to mostly the importers than the customs’, he offered.
Bob-Chukwuma commended the Lagos State and Federal Governments for building the largest deep seaport in Africa in Lekki Lagos and enthused that he foresaw a bright future for the project since the federal and state governments are working frenetically to build a sizeable road network to the port.

“We will not rely only on barges , but in fact the express roads will soon be ready to serve the Lekki Port and port users. I thank the Lagos State government for their vision and I thank the federal government for their timely intervention,” said Bob-Chukwuma Hyacent.

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