The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) says it is working closely with other government agencies, including the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to ensure that imports and exports are cleared out of the port faster.
Featuring in a panel discussion on the export of non-oil products at the 2023 Zenith Bank International Trade Seminar in Lagos, on Tuesday, NPA Managing Director, Mr. Mohammed Bello Koko said, “We need the Customs to reduce the time it takes to scan and inspect cargo because the faster it takes, the earlier the importer takes his goods.”
Koko disclosed that NPA recorded 3.5m metric tonnes of export in the first half of 2023, adding that in 2019, the ports recorded about 2.8 million metric tonnes of export, in 2020 it increased to 3.8 million metric tonnes.
“By 2021, it was 3.79 million metric tonnes, by 2022 over 5.1 million metric tonnes and half year now we have already recorded about 3.5 million metric tonnes,”
He explained that the collaboration with the Nigeria Customs Service helped the NPA in achieving the feat as he expressed optimism that the agency will achieve more than it attained in previous years.
He said: “NPA’s responsibility is to handle the logistics issue as relates to the delivery of cargos to ports, reviewing the cargos and also ensuring that it is loaded for the voyage.
“We encouraged the terminal operators to create hinterland aggregation points and dedicated spaces for export within the port terminals, but we need to realise that the ports are very small and therefore there are capacity issues.
“So, what we did was to create export processing terminals and the export processing terminals are one-stop shops where you consolidate, test, weigh, and pack it and then go straight into the ports.
“What the customs did for us is to create an export command. This means there are individuals responsible for all export problems that you can relate with.
“This effort has really yielded results as we have recorded high exports. In 2019, the ports recorded about 2.8 million metric tonnes of export; in 2020 it increased to 3.8 million metric tonnes.
“By 2021 it was 3.79 million metric tonnes, by 2022 over 5.1 million metric tonnes, and a half year now we have already recorded about 3.5 million metric tonnes.
“Don’t forget that shipping activities actually pick from the middle of the year, so you can perceive that we are going to achieve more than what we got last year.”
