- Ag Managing Director of NPA, Mohammed Bello Koko, flanked by the Executive Director, Marine and Operations, Onari Brown (right), General Manager, Administration, Sylvester Ajibola (left), and others during the flag-off of the NPA the records centre in Lagos
By Anthony Nwachukwu
Towards improved retentive capacity and operational efficiency, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has commissioned a comprehensive e-documents management and records solutions centre to enable it develop and improve seamless customer-based services and operations.
Unveiling the facility, NPA Ag Managing Director, Mohammed Bello Koko, stated that it would enable the agency to migrate from physical archiving to digitalisation, thereby serving as antidote to vandalism, theft and arson.
Koko said the migration extends to work flow via electronic documents management solution (EDMS), with strategies to localise same at port locations as functional retention centres.
It also complies with the status of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), according to a statement from the General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Communications, Olaseni Alakija.
He explained that the speed and seamless nature of the EDMS in records storage and processing bear on the organisation’s desire to achieve customer satisfaction and excellence while promoting the ease of doing business.
He disclosed that the ISO framework positions agencies to reap the benefits of enhanced records management, including “meeting legal obligations for accurate storage and retrievals,” while the e-documents facility will improve accountability and transparency, and strengthen the agency’s auditing system and training process to world class standard.
According to him, achieving a 360° document management solution was in line with the NPA’s strategic intent to sustain competiveness in the sub-region by prioritising document safety through automation and digitalisation.
“At the moment, the NPA has two other functional retention centres – in Apapa and Port Harcourt, to serve the Lagos and eastern ports respectively, in addition to another record centre along the Apapa Port area, which is currently being automated,” Koko disclosed.
The pilot project of the end-to-end documents management solution is expected to have been achieved before the end of 2021.
