Customs moves to avert impact of COVID-19, others

West and Central African Organisations have begun moves to avert adversities like the impacts of the Covid-19.

Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Comptroller General, who is also the Vice President WCA, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) said 60% of the NCS workforce stopped work during the pandemic.

He spoke at the 11th Meeting of Training and Human Resources Managers of West and Central African Region that is holding in Abuja.

The three-day training, according to him, is to equip the regional Customs with the requisite innovative strategy that would enhance the well-being of the staff.

15 countries in the region are expected in the training that is for the middle cadre officers- Assistant Superintendent and Deputy Superintendents of Customs.

The yearly training is being rotated in the region and this time is Nigeria’s turn to host it.

Ali said “In the course of the three-day training programme, they will interact with themselves and share experiences of other administrations and enhance the training of our officers.

“We have been innovative and because of the pandemic we have now realised we have to work towards a flexible programme. Once things happen like the Covid -19 we will be able to work.

“We have to stop most of our work. About 60% of our workforce because of the pandemic. We now think how best we can handle such a situation if the need does arise again.

“ So, these are the types of training we do, interact the outcome with models of how we can avert some of those adversities.

“The training is mostly for the middle cadre people: Chief Superintendent and Deputy Superintendents.

“It is yearly. Next year we will remodel the training on experience based. We have 15 countries and I expect Every country must have sent its own representative.”

He explained that there is no unified Customs Duty thus, the training would be the same for the entire region while each country’s administration picks up the modules and dissects them to suit its peculiarities.

He said “Customs duty is Customs duty in Nigeria, in Benin , in Nigeria. It is the same thing.

“What we do is the synergy and we have the umbrella of the World Customs mobilisation that spins out the modules and then we pick up from there, dissect it to suit the level of our region.”

The NCS boss said the theme: “Resilience and Wellbeing of Human Capital, Driving the Performance of Customs Administrations in the WCA Region,” is very apt and indisputably timely, considering the negative impacts of COVID-19 global health pandemic and WCA region’s endemic challenges of insurgency, terrorism and poverty.

According to him, studies and research have shown that employees’ wellbeing (positive psychology, resilience, expectations and optimism) is a springboard to personnel performance and that resilience, which is one of the characteristics that helps a person to avoid impulsive and reactive behaviour, has a strong correlation with human capital performance.

He asserted that, “the acquisition of evolving and scientific skills in human resource management will elicit focus of Customs Administrations in the WCA region to invest on taking care of our human capital during these recovery phases of the global health pandemic and economic downturn to drive human capital performance.

Given that WCAregion has always been faced with multifaceted challenges from both economic and health points of view in addition to the current global COVID19 pandemic consequences of economic down turn, a conscious collective and positive” actions initiated and coordinated by the Office of the Vice Chair WCA to shift the focus of Human Resource Management from protecting operations and

infrastructures to scientific research phase for the promotion of employee wellbeing is necessary.’