- Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi,
By Anthony Nwachukwu
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has reiterated its resolve to grow the economy through enhanced trade facilitation tools, leveraging platforms and policies like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the United States-backed African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA).
Speaking in Lagos at the Science of Trade (SOT) Conference organised by Ascend Studios Foundation in partnership with the U.S. Consulate and other groups, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, said the agency was perfecting trade procedures within the customs zone.
According to Adeniyi, who was represented by the Customs Area Controller for Apapa Port, Compt. Babatunde Olomu, the agency is collaborating with the Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD) of the European Union (EU) for efficient export monitoring and trade facilitation.
He noted that as part of the NCS outreach programme, the service was also working with other agencies of the Nigerian government to maximise trade opportunities and reduce the incident of Nigerian goods being returned from countries of destination.
For traders willing to participate in AGOA, there are ongoing efforts to establish a one-stop-shop seat for export documentation to reduce the time it takes Nigerian exporters to get their goods out of the nation’s port, a statement from the Public Relations Officer, Apapa Area Command, Abubakar Usman, added.
Adeniyi further explained that programmes like the Time Release Studies, which are targeted at imported goods and how long it takes Nigerian businessmen to clear their goods from the port, are geared towards enhancing customs efficiency in Nigeria in line with global best practices.
The exercise, he stated, is directed at generating a scientific measure of how long and how much it costs Nigerian businessmen to export their products through NCS control, with a view to identifying bureaucratic procedures, or laws that create delays, so that compliant traders can get their cargoes off the ports, border stations and airports in good time.
He further listed continuous training and retraining of different cadres of customs officers, regular interface with various stakeholders and sustained improvement in technological capacity as part of efforts embarked upon since he assumed office.
Meanwhile, as a panelist at an interactive session, Compt. Olomu urged the participants comprising entrepreneurs, diplomats and other members of the trading community to keep abreast of government’s import and export prohibition lists.
He disclosed that the Apapa Port command was evolving a reliable system to process non-intrusive inspection of cargoes that meets World Customs Organisation and World Trade Organisation standards.
