EU acquires scanners for Nigeria, Togolese Customs

As part of its efforts to enhance seamless cargo inspection as well as trade across borders, the European Union has perfected arrangements to handover newly acquired cargo scanning machines to the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and Togolese Customs, before the end of this year (2018).

BusinessDay understands that the scanners, which had already been stacked at the Cotonou port, are expected to aid trade facilitation along the West African trade corridors, and may be deployed any moment from now. It will be allocated to the Togo, and Nigeria-Benin Republic border posts.

Recall that the newly built Seme-Krake Joint Border Post, which was funded by the EU for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), was handed over to the governments of Nigeria and Benin on Tuesday, 23 October, 2018.

President Muhammadu Buhari and his Benin counterpart, Patrice Talon, inaugurated the facility in the presence of Ketil Karlsen, head of the EU delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, and his colleague in Benin.

The Joint Border Post (JBP) of Sèmè-Kraké between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Republic of Benin was built in the framework of the ECOWAS Road Transport and Transit Facilitation Programme, an integral part of the regional strategy for implementing a comprehensive action programme on infrastructure and road transport.

It is a modern border, built according to international standards to meet the expectations of the ECOWAS people. The border is one of the busiest boundary lines in both West African region and Africa as a whole, due to the huge movement of persons, goods and services daily.

Speaking with newsmen in Seme last Wednesday, Mohammed Garba, area controller of Customs, Seme Border Command, said that the scanners are already imported and currently at Cotonou port.

According to Garba, the modern border post would boost international trade across borders and strengthen trade relationship between Nigeria and neighbouring countries.

“The new border post will improve on our revenue generation by way of exchange of information and sensitisation of importers. We will be working together with the Benin counterpart. I can assure you that illegal trade will be minimised to the barest minimum,” he said.

Garba, who was optimistic that the scanners would enhance their operations, disclosed that every facility in the new border post was provided by the EU, including the chairs. “The scanners and other electronics will also be provided by them. Already, two scanners have arrived. They are in Cotonou port.”

He further said that NCS still operates its existing scanners at the border, but noted that goods can be subjected to 100 percent examination at any point in time, as the Customs deemed fit, especially as regards the nature of such goods.

The officers, Garba added, are yet to fully move to the new border facility, as some facilities relevant to Customs operations, such as the Information Communication Technology (ICT) are yet to be fixed.

Recall that President Buhari said during the commissioning that the border post, which sits on 17 hectares of land, would enhance trade by combining border clearance activities in a single location, increase cooperation and coordination of controls, in addition to fostering data and intelligence sharing between Nigeria and Benin Republic.

“The Border Post is strategically important and it lies on the Lagos-Cotonou-Lome-Accra-Abidjan trade corridor, which accounts for about 70 percent of the entire transit traffic in the sub-region.”

The importance of scanning machines to cargo clearance cannot be over-emphasised as businesses in Nigeria including importers that depend on the seaport and borders for the importation of raw materials and other critical production inputs are currently under cost-driven pressure, following the delay and high cost associated with the manual cargo inspection procedure used by the Customs.

This procedure is characterised with long and cumbersome processes, which results to delay that keeps imported cargos in the terminals for a minimum of 14 to 21 days, and has also made Nigeria to rank poorly in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business list.

BusinessDay understands that barely four years after the Destination Inspection (DI) service providers handed over some set of fixed and mobile scanning machines worth over $120 million, built and situated in different port locations and border stations to the management of Customs, the Customs has failed to fully make use of these machines in clearing cargo.

Currently, over 90 percent of all the containers and general cargos imported through the nation’s seaports and borders undergo manual inspection process popularly known as 100 percent physical examination.

Tony Anakebe, managing director of Gold-Link Investments Limited, a clearing and forwarding company, said in Lagos that the process of clearing imported cargo at the Nigerian ports is currently the longest compared to clearing from other seaports in neigbouring West African ports.

The scanners in most ports and border stations, Anakebe said, are not in good shape, making it difficult, if not impossible, for the NCS to discharge its duty of container inspection, effectively.

Uzoamaka Anagor-Ewuzie