Customs and implementation of Ease of Doing Business at seaports

The office of Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, in 2017 came up with an Executive Order on Ease of Doing Business at the ports, aimed at reducing the time spent in clearing import and export cargoes in Nigerian seaports.

The Order, which hopes to improve Nigeria’s ranking on the World Bank Ease of Doing Business Index, if properly implemented, would reduce the huge cost implications the delay in cargo clearance creates for shippers.

This is because many importers pay hundreds of billions of naira annually to shipping companies and terminal operators as demurrage and storage rents, for not taking delivery of their consignments as and when due.

Precisely, the Executive Order was targeted at ensuring that all parties involved in bringing in cargo and clearing them at the ports contributes their quota towards ensuring that genuine importers with the right cargo get their goods delivered to their warehouses early without delay.

Port business is an international business that is done within the global value chain, thus the need for all players who operates within the value chain to operate professionally.

Here, all parties including the importers, officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), service providers and other agencies of government need to contribute their quota towards facilitating trade at the ports.

However, industry close watchers believed that the implementation of the Executive Order places enormous responsibilities on the Customs as the lead agency of government, in charge of cargo inspection and release at the port.

Consequently, Customs management needed to put several reforms in place in order to make Nigerian port user friendly and improve the plight of shippers (importers and exporters).

As a result, Customs changed its examination procedure by collapsing cargo examination into a one-stop-shop arrangement that mandates all the agencies involved in cargo examination at the ports to gather at a designated examination center on daily basis before the team will proceed to the examination bay at the terminals.

Here, at the end of the examination, all the government agencies must return to the Customs examination center together to input the result and send it to the releasing seat without delay. This allows the owner of the cargo to take delivery of the consignment without incurring avoidable cost associated with delays.

“As part of the arrangement that came with the Ease of Doing Business, cargo examination has been collapsed into a one-stop-shop arrangement. Here, all the agencies involved in cargo examination gather at the examination center on daily basis before proceeding to the examination bay at the terminal,” Musa Jubrin, Customs Area Controller of the Apapa Area command, said.

The new examination procedure, according to him, has eliminated the outdated and cumbersome process of allowing an importer to be going to the agencies one after the other to obtain clearance before the release of the consignment.

Secondly, the Service went further to improve on its automation process by introducing a new online platform known as the Nigeria Customs Integrated Information System (NICIS 11).

NICIS is a virtual single window framework that facilitates, secures and enhances the management of trade in Nigerian ports. The state-of-the art electronic trade platform powered by the Trade World Manager (TWM) interconnects Customs with all stakeholders in a common business environment based on internationally recognised best practice.

NICIS does not only harmonise and integrates all documents of the trade chain in one format, but has an advanced security features that incorporate the use of biometrics such as fingerprint, digital authentication and signatures in preparation for Internet-based paperless trade.

Apart from helping to fast track doing business at the ports, the introduction of NICIS 11 has also helped in blocking revenue leakages at the ports as commands such as Apapa confirmed that it has been recording increase in revenue since the launch of NICIS 11.

For instance, in month of April Apapa collected N28 billion; May N33 billion and N30 billion as at 28 of June.

The Order also compelled Customs as well as other agencies to operate 24-hours round-the-clock aimed at eliminating the negative effects, which non-clearance of goods on weekends and public holidays, has on cost of doing business at ports.

Currently, Tin-Can Island and Apapa Customs commands have started operating at nights.

“We operate round-the-clock. If, anybody wants to take his consignment at nights, he or she can come but the roads are so terrible and most importers do not want to take their goods through this kind of road at nights for security reasons,” Musa Jubrin, Customs Area Controller of the Apapa Area command, said.

In terms of cargo movement, Jubrin said that Customs in collaboration with other stakeholders have fashioned out a way to be moving the cargo using the rail line to cushion the effects of the bad road.

Here, cargoes are being taken by rail to places such as Ota and Ebute-Emetta.

Though, Customs has put in efforts to make doing business easier for shippers but close industry watchers believed that a lot need to be done to fast track cargo clearance at ports.

For instance, there are fiscal and monetary policies guiding import trade and there is need for the shippers to improve their level of compliance to the guideline.

By Customs estimation, about 70 percent of the importers bringing goods into Nigerian seaports do not comply with rules and regulations guiding international trade in Nigeria.

Also, there is need for other stakeholders to key into the NICIS platform so that importers can benefit from the automation and single window process.