The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), plans to install scanners at its various formations with the capacity to scan 200 containers per hour
In its bid to fast-track cargo clearing processes in its various formations, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said it is collaborating with Trade Modernisation Project Limited to install Gantry Scanners with the capacity to scan 200 containers per hour. This is part of the massive deployment of state-of-the-art equipment across the nation’s ports under Custom’s Trade Facilitation Programme being spear-headed by the Comptroller-General, Mr. Bashir Adewale Adeniyi.
According to the General Manager of Trade Modernisation Project Limited, Mr. Ahmed Ogunsola, who led press men on a facility-tour of the hub of the project, in Abuja, recently, the cutting-edge technology being put in place would make the long-awaited ports decongestion a reality.
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Ogunsola said, “With the state-of-the-art equipment being installed, we will cut the time containers spend at ports. We will cut the time NCS officers spend to treat documents by half.”
At the Modernisation Hub located within the NCS Management Estate in Abuja, Ogunsola also said that the Information and Technology experts, including software developers, have been working long hours daily, to deliver a foolproof system that would make export and import businesses easy in the country.
Ogunsola disclosed that when the project is completed, the Unified Customs Management software would leverage on geospatial technology, while Customs software experts will be infused into the team of experts from the TMP Project limited.
According to Mr. Ogunsola, “A lot of people ask, why don’t you just buy something and come and give to the NCS. One of the things that we have to pay attention to is that you don’t just come and buy something and come and dump it, the problem with that is, if you buy something off the shelf and bring it, even if you train and train, if there is no sense of ownership, honestly, at the end of the day, it is dead. That is why a lot of technology projects failed.
What we have done is that from day one that the first code of that software was written, customs officers were involved. So it is not something that we bought and brought. The software you see here was designed, developed and being deployed from this room”.
