• Friday, March 29, 2024
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COVID-19 heightens need for virtual, contactless cargo-clearing process in Nigerian ports

cargo-clearing process

Social distancing measures necessitated by the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) have brought to the fore the urgent need to fully digitalise Nigerian ports by deploying functional scanning machines and single window platform for cargo inspection.

The current 100 percent physical inspection of cargo in the presence of cargo owner is causing longer dwell time of containers and creating backlog of uncleared goods at the nation’s seaports. This has continued to worsen the inefficiency of the port system as most terminals currently suffer 90 percent yard occupancy (congestion) due to the delay in taking delivery of containers. Importers are thereby compelled to pay heavy demurrage and storage rent to shipping companies and terminal operators.

“We must have a port that is contactless and paperless. We need the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Customs, freight forwarders and service providers to transact business online,” Hassan Bello, executive secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), said recently during a webinar session.

Digitalisation of the ports would make them more efficient and competitive, Bello said, calling for the establishment of a virtual port and elimination of ports that depend on manual operations with all the freight forwarders going to the port when things could be done online.

“We have to sharpen our terms of trade and there are four vital legislations that we have to push out including arrival and departure of ships, responsibility of terminal operators for transparency, and electronic bill of lading, which will make it mandatory for people to transact online,” he said.

Bello’s concerns followed the recent report that some officers of the Apapa Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) tested positive for COVID-19. The news raised tension at the command as some Customs Licensed Agents that do business at the command expressed concern over the likelihood of community transmission of the virus within port environment due to manual inspection of goods that contradicts social distancing rule.

But beyond the fear of Covid-19, Tony Anakebe, managing director of Gold-Link Investment Ltd, a Lagos-based clearing and forwarding firm, said importers and their agents currently encounter various kinds of challenges during cargo clearing at the port due to physical inspection of goods by Customs and other government agencies.

According to him, the documentation processes for cargo clearing are very clumsy and cumbersome for importers, and as a result, it takes a minimum of three weeks or 21 days to clear cargo from the port.
Nigeria’s cargo inspection system lags behind peers, Anakebe said, stressing the need for Customs to make use of Single Window and other electronic clearing systems to facilitate trade.

Drawing comparison, Anakebe said in Dubai, for instance, Customs brokers do not carry out face-to-face business with Customs.

“As the agent pays the duty, scan the document to Customs and within two to three hours, the agents would pick the cargo. Over there, attention is paid on payment of correct duty as well as the importation of the right cargo while the rest of the authorities do their jobs online,” he said.

Further emphasising the need for digitalisation, Bello said the ports need to operate 24/7 just like the airport. He said one of the reasons there’s congestion at the nation’s ports is that the ports operate only Mondays to Fridays without weekends, adding that cargo dwell time would reduce from the current 20 days to seven days with round-the-clock operation.

He disclosed that the Federal Government plans to ensure up to 90 percent digitalisation of port by March 2021, from the present 60 percent.

Hadiza Bala Usman, managing director of the NPA, said the establishment of Single Window would ensure that Nigeria has less human interventions in cargo clearing system.

She said that one of the things hindering Nigerian ports from achieving efficient and timely service delivery, which translates into huge cost for the consignee, is the absence of Single Window platform.

Meanwhile, Aminu Umar, a ship owner, called for the reduction of the number of government agencies that go onboard vessels for clearance. He said ships laden with goods experience huge delay at the ports and this has affected their operations.

“With this delay, demurrages also piled up for ship owners and this has created serious conflict between the ship owners and their clients. Based on the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), it takes a quarantine period of 14 days for a vessel to be allowed into the port and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) pilot goes onboard the vessel first before the Port Health,” he said.

This, he said, is contrary to the European procedure where no official is allowed to board the vessel because everything is done virtually. Nigeria can adopt that procedure in order to reduce human interaction as well as limit the spread of Covid-19 at the ports, he said.