As the deadline for commencement of 24hours port operation approaches, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has called for collaboration among all the government agencies operating at the ports.
The council said this yesterday in Lagos during a town hall meeting on the 24hours ports operation, organised by the Association of Maritime Journalists of Nigeria (AMJON).
Speaking during the event, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council; Barrister Hassan Bello, who was represented by Principal Operator, Commercial Shipping Service; Juliana Osaka, said that as an economic regulator, the Council should be allowed to act independently from any market interest in developing rules, set standard, monitor compliance and also sanction defaulters when the need arises.
It also asked the government to address the urgently need for scanners in the ports.
Mr Bello also called for a sustained enlightenment of freight forwarders and consignees on the need to make proper declaration as well as early processing of their documents before arrival of the vessel conveying their cargoes in Nigeria.
He advised that operators, especially the Nigeria Customs Service, Shipping Lines and the NPA need to complement each other to render services to port users.
"The government needs to launch a common portal for all its agencies in the ports to complete all import or export procedures with a single transmission at a single site. Hence government must ensure that everything that needs to do with cargo clearance needs to be standardized and integrated, 90% containers should go for scanning while 10% for physics examination", he said.
Speaking further, he stressed that the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) launched by NSC is a guide to all port users on the operating procedures of all service providers in the ports.
He maintained that there is need to harmonize and streamline the S.O.P in order to reduce the number of procedures.
"The S.O.P portal should also be integrated with Nigerian integrated custom information system in order to save time, cost and enhance competitiveness of Nigerian Port”, he concluded.
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