The challenges militating against the noble initiative called the Domestic Export Warehouse (DEW) system have been identified at a seminar in Port Harcourt.
DEW is a recently initiated system where goods meant for export kept in special warehouses located at some areas for one-stop-shop processing. All the agencies would come to the same location and carry out their duties and the goods would leave at same time to the port and for outside Nigeria.
It was gathered that these are located in all the geopolitical locations.
At the workshop at the Niger Delta Basin Development Authority (NDBDA) in Port Harcourt recently, Afolabi Temple from the National Action Plan (NAP) of the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) headquarters, listed the number one challenge as slow automation of export processes. He said when the goods come at the warehouse, using manual method to process them makes the job cumbersome.
He also said those filling the Nigeria Export Proceeds Form (NXP) usually deay a lot, making work at the designated DEW centres to delay much to the complaint of the exporters.
Afolabi said most of the DEWs are hardly patronised, saying this was caused by the identified lapses. He also said there is low patronage of critical stakeholders such as shipping companies, terminal operators, etc.
The bottom line is that the agencies that ought to support the DEW centres and the exporters that ought to flock in them make have voted with their feet (abandoned) the facilities.
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Speaking at the sensitisation session on DEW, Afolabi said the DEW concept has huge benefits such as unhindered access to ports, streamlined export documentation, prompt delivery to ports, and agencies’ inspections.
He mentioned the technical implementation membership to include the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Customs Services, Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), and the Nigeria Shippers Council (NSC).
Enumerating the stages of implementation, the NEPC official mentioned development of the DEW project document August 2020 by the Council, engagement session September 30, 2020 with exports related agencies and other stakeholders in Lagos for input, and the National Engagement Session in Abuja, Lagos, and Port Harcourt.
He also mentioned that technology has been incorporated into DEW such as software for tracking, and designated DEW trucks. Others include approved DEW operators, Kaduna Inland Dry Port, Kaduna; Gezewa Community (Kano); and Harris Logistics, Lokoja.
On roles of NEPC on DEW, he said the Council develops and incentivises. He said mentions Nigeria’s enormous efforts to convert its comparative advantage in agric produce which he said is hampered by supply chain constraints.
He said the supply chain (storage logistics) is very important in entrepreneurship and export business because of timely delivery of goods.
He said the strategy is to resolve the challenges to boost exportation. He said the concept of DEW is to create a one-stop facility/terminal for products, aggregation, packaging, labeling pre-shipment, etc to reduce delays encountered prior to shipment and reduce spoilage/poor handling of products usually associated with the way goods are sourced to meet export orders. ‘It streamlines export procedures and documentations.”
The South-South Zonal Coordinator of NEPC, Joe Itah, represented the Executive Director/CEO, Ezra Yakusak PhD, who made it clear that Nigeria has no option than to boost non-oil export business with many opportunities provided by the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
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