03 July 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos – The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, has stressed the need to streamline the current import and export guidelines procedures, saying this was necessary to achieve greater service delivery at the ports.
Comptroller General of the Service, Col. Hammed Ali (rtd.), who made this known at a town hall meeting in Lagos, also emphasised the need for advanced cargo manifest by shipping line agencies.
“In order to achieve greater service delivery at the ports, there was the need to streamline the current import and export guidelines procedures,” he said and added: “To achieve greater service delivery at our ports the department of home finance of the Federal Ministry of Finance revised Nigeria’s import and export guidelines streamlining the current procedures”
Ali, who was represented by the Customs Area Controller, Ports and Terminal multi-services Limited, PTML, Command of the service, Comptroller Aremu Morenike, said the new guidelines would focus on some of the issues causing inefficiency and delay at the ports.
He explained that some of the new guidelines would impact directly on the operations of officers and men at the ports.
In order to ensure full compliance with the executive order on 24 hours ports operations, he insisted that advanced cargo manifest by shipping line agencies must be submitted 7 days before the arrival of the vessel to the nation’s seaport.
Harping on the actualisation of 24hours ports operation, the customs boss maintained that the service is positioned to implement the executive order saying that the impediment to the attainment remains the integrity and compliance of the trading public in ensuring proper documentation and honest declaration.
He noted that the service remained the lead agency in cargo examination at the ports and that under the new guidelines, cargo placement notice time for the examination required by terminal operators would be reduced from the proposed 24hours to a maximum 12hours.
The ex-Army chief re-echoed that revised guideline requires the shipping lines to electronically transmit advanced manifest to their consignments to the customs and Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, as soon as the vessel depart its last port of call, pointing out that such practices would promote risk management, profiling, and cargo placement for examination.
