Senator Dino Melaye (APC-Kogi West) on Monday seemed to have rekindled the feud between the Senat and Col. Hammed Ali (rtd), the Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service. The incident occurred during an oversight visit by the Senate ad-hoc committee on Economic Waste in Nigeria to the Customs Headquarters in Abuja. The committee, headed by Melaye, had taken offence at not being welcomed at the Customs building entrance by the Customs boss. Melaye, before giving his speech, pointed out what he deemed a breach of protocol. He said it has always been the way in the past for the head of statutory agencies to extend the courtesy of meeting a senatorial committee at the entrance.
He said: "Before reading the prepared speech of the committee, let me make this small remark on what we have just observed here in form of breach of protocols. "Mr CG, rather than meeting us here at the conference room by way of courtesy, you supposed to have met us at the ground floor on arrival into the premises. "That has been the practice of statutory bodies headed by Chief Executive Officers like you. Relevant Senate committees have over the years been accorded this by bosses of Immigration Service, Prison Service and others, making us to wonder why it was not so here today under your leadership.
Therefore before proceeding further, on account of this observation, we want the Customs management to know that the presence of this committee before it implies that the Senate itself is before it to put things in order as regards the economic waste taking place in the Customs Service requiring the seriousness it deserves from you and the entire management.”In reply to this, the Customs CG said: “We have our own protocol as regards receiving visitors like you. I don’t need to come downstairs to receive you just as nobody in the Senate or House of Representatives has ever come out to receive us anytime we visit the National Assembly.”
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