Esther Oritse
Lagos — The Shipping Association of Nigeria (SAN), which represents foreign shipping lines operating in the country, says the newly introduced Unified Customs Management System (UCMS) has not only disrupted their operations, but it has caused them to incur significant losses.
Speaking with journalists in Lagos over the weekend, the Chairperson of the group, Boma Alabi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), criticised the rollout of the new Customs automation platform, saying government agencies failed to conduct adequate testing before deploying it.
Alabi warned that the persistent inefficiencies across government agencies continue to weigh heavily on port operations. According to her, any lapse in Customs processes immediately disrupts cargo movement.
She said: “So if Customs are not operating at optimum, that immediately impacts how quickly you can clear your goods both imports and exports. We have tried, and I know government has also tried, to automate Customs operations.
“B’ Odogwu caused mayhem to begin with because it was not working properly. There was a lot of downtime, and we had no other options. That disrupted both goods coming in and goods going out.
“Manufacturers who were expecting raw materials for production were waiting six to eight weeks. That meant factories were unable to produce because those inputs were not available.
“It is now a bit more efficient, but the lesson from the B’ Odogwu experience is that it should have been thoroughly tested before being released to the public. Unfortunately, these government agencies do not think from a commercial perspective.
“They simply roll things out, and then the industry suffers because they failed to take the time to test-run properly before introducing it to the public.”
