NPA’s RIMS solution to block revenue leakages, improve operations
Following the introduction of Revenue Invoicing Management Systems (RIMS), the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) said it aimed to double its revenue, meet the financial expectations of the federal government and boost the nation’s economy.
RIMS solution and Customer Portal, two new automatic processes, introduced by Habib Abdullahi-led administration of NPA, are fully convergent and real time platforms for transacting with the authority. The platforms, which are fully integrated with the existing Oracle Financials, Oracle Human Capital Management, NPA Pay-direct via Interswitch and Electronic Ship Entry Notice (eSEN), will help to lower operational cost and shorten the time for documentation of laden vessels.
Industry close watchers, who commended NPA for the effort, believed that the introduction of this system will improve NPA service offering, partnership relation, create efficient payment method, maximise revenue and minimise loss associated with fraud and revenue leakage.
“With the full automation of the operational process of NPA, its revenues from the ports would exceed its projections. The overall budget performance of NPA in 2013 and 2014 showed that NPA is doing fine in terms of monitoring the activities of terminal operators to ensure strict compliance and track revenues,” said a source close to the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The source further said that NPA will be able to track where the revenue is leaking and it was based on this that NPA was able to achieve over 95 percent of its annual budget in the last three years.
BusinessDay search reveals that facilitation of trade is an impediment to revenue drive that is why the management of NPA is doing a lot to position the nation’s seaports for the hub status through wreck removal and dredging of waterway for safe navigation of ships.
Also, there is need for Federal Government to ensure that the role of other agencies at the port will enable the land-locked countries in West and Central Africa to channel their imports through Nigerian ports, so that the authority can surpass its target.
At the recent launching of RIMS, Abdullahi, managing director of NPA said the authority has achieved a milestone in its journey to achieving full automation of its operational processes. Port operations, he stated, involves a network of processes and documentations from the port of loading to the port of destination. “Effective coordination of the activities makes the integration of the processes through automation absolutely necessary in order to facilitate seamless operations thereby reducing cost and time.”
According to him, NPA introduced E-Sen last year as a first step towards full automation of its processes, and this has helped in improving efficiency in port operations. “The Customer Self Service Portal on the other hand, provides a platform for customers to initiate and conclude their business with NPA and also communicate with NPA.”
He listed the benefits to include improved customer service delivery; easy access to customer account status; view of all transactions and status in respect of bills; electronic upload of manifest; e-invoice and e-receipt generation.
The billing application, which will soon proceed to the next stage, covers payment processes in areas such as lease fees, service boats, passenger boats, general bills (jetties and trawlers), and oil terminal dues (OTD), compulsory pilotage rates (CPR) while the next stage will cover throughput fees, estate bills and provisional/final bills.
Statistics shows that cargo throughput increased from 46,150,518 metric tonnes in 2006 to 86,603,903 metric tonnes in 2014, indicating 87 percent increase during that period which is due in part to the authority’s efforts at improving processes.
Olumide Oduntan, executive director, Finance and Administration, said that NPA expects the RIMS solution to improve cargo based revenue by 52 percent in one year and 65 percent subsequently. He noted that the e-ship entry notice initiative also introduced by the NPA has improved Gross Tonnage (GRT) based revenue by 38 percent between 2014 and 2015.
“The deployment of e-SEN and RIMS Solution has blocked all leakages in our operational activities by 95 percent and the remaining five percent would be blocked upon the launch of the command and control centre which is expected to go live by the end of November, this year,” he said.
Similarly, Ahmad Rabiu, National Vice President, Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), who commended NPA for the giant stride recorded in the port, also said that there is need for all stakeholders to support NPA in its efforts to block revenue leakages and distortions, improve efficiency and block channels for corruption in the ports.
UZOAMAKA ANAGOR-Ewuzie