The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is collaborating with Trade Modernisation Project Limited to install Gantry Scanners with the capacity to scan 200 containers per hour.
This is part of the massive deployment of state-of-the-art equipment across the nation’s ports under Custom’s Trade Facilitation Programme being spear-headed by the Comptroller-General, Mr. Adewale Adeniyi.
The General Manager of Trade Modernisation Project Limited, Mr. Ahmed Ogunsola, who led journalists on a facility-tour of the hub of the project disclosed that the cutting-edge technology being put in place would make the long-awaited ports decongestion a reality.
His words, “with the state-of-the-art equipment being installed, we will cut the time containers spend at ports. We will cut the time NCS officers spend to treat documents by half.
At the Modernisation Hub located within the NCS Management Estate in Abuja, the GM said that the Information and Technology experts, including software developers, have been working long hours daily, to deliver a foolproof system that would make export and import businesses easy in the country.
When completed, the Unified Customs Management software, which would leverage on geospatial technology,
Customers software experts were infused into the team of experts from the TMP Project limited, as according to Mr. Ogunsola, “A lot of people ask, why don’t you just buy something and come and give to the NCS. One of the things that we have to pay attention to is that you don’t just come and buy something and come and dump it, the problem with that is, if you buy something off the shelf and bring it, even if train and train, if there is no sense of ownership, honestly, at the end of the day, it is dead. That is why there are a lot of technology projects fail.
What we have done is that from day one that the first code of that software was written, customs officers were involved. So it is not something that we bought and brought. The software you see here was designed, developed and being deployed from this room.
According to Mr. Ogunsola, the 20-year concession is divided into three phases: Years 1-6, 7-13; 14-20 with different measurable milestones to enable the NCS effectively take over the system without hitches, at the end of the 20-year period.
He said, “Phase 0ne, all systems must be deployed- hardware, software, technology services and everything we are doing within phase one, everything must be deployed. Phase two we continue to manage, maintain and replace as needed.
“In phase three, we will do that but the significance of phase three is that in phase three, TMP will take the backseat and NCS officers will fully take-over the management of the system so that they will have six full years of hands-on in terms of implementing. By the time the system is handed over to Customs, it will be a seamless transition.”
Mr. Usman Abba, a Chief Superintendent of Customs and one of those leading the team of Customs officers in the project said that it would bring ports closer to all stakeholders as goods clearance processes could be monitored by all importers by login on to the portal from anywhere in the world.
With the system in place, he said that the transaction can be followed from the day the trader signifies the intention to import through ports clearance processes to when the goods are delivered at his house.
Mr. Usman Abba, a Chief Superintendent of Customs and one of those leading the team of Customs officers in the project said that it would bring ports closer to all stakeholders as goods clearance processes could be monitored by all importers by login on to the portal from anywhere in the world.
With the system in place, he said, the transaction could be followed from the day the trader signified the intention to import through ports clearance processes to when the goods are delivered at his house.
In a similar vein, the National Public Relations Officer of the service, Mr. Abdullahi Maiwada (CSP), said that the era of pranks by agents who deceive importers on the true positions of their cargoes, would be a thing of the past, one the system was deployed.
He said that each document could be tracked by all importers to determine its position and that even officers of the service would be on their toes as the time a document spends with them would be seen by all.
Mr. Maiwada expressed optimism that Nigerian ports would gain the place of pride in international trade as they would be decongested and clearance of goods with a.much appreciable speed would become the norm immediately after the deployment of the Trade Modernisation system.
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