Freight forwarders operating at Nigeria's RoRo port; PTML Terminal have alleged delay being experienced in punching their entries and taking delivery of their cargoes at the terminal.
Contrary to provisions of the Pre Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) which provides for agents to begin processing their documentation even before the arrival of the vessel, the agents lamented that at PTML they are forced to wait until the discharges its content before punching their entries.
Chairman of the PTML Chapter of National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Mr. George Okafor noted that the PTML Terminal by design is divided into sheds 1 to 4. He said shed 4 is at Mile 2 terminal.
He however said an officer in shed four cannot release a cargo that has been punched at shed one, even as he recalled that before the advent of Nigeria Customs Integrated System (NICIS), this was the usual practice.
Speaking on the development, Okafor said "With NICIS, things are supposed to be very easy, but because of the various sheds we have, it has made it that you cannot punch your job until the ship is fully offloaded and you know where your consignment is, this leads to delays because normally, before your ship comes, you get your document punched, so that when the ship finally arrives, you would go and do examination"
"Once you punch, NICIS would tell you the officer that would release your job, so you don't need to start going around and looking for officer to release your job, now you must wait and know where the consignment is located before you punch" he said
He said that the current challenge affects mainly vehicles, containers but that trucks and truck heads are not affected.
According to him, the leadership of the association has taken the case to the Customs Area Controller for action. He said the challenge is something that customs needs to iron out with PTML terminal.
He said "Customs should harmonize it that you can punch jobs anywhere, but go and release it anywhere the cargo is allocated to".
Reacting to these claims however, the Public Relations Officer of the command, Yakubu Mohammed said the freight forwarders are not ready to comply with the Ease of Doing Business order of the federal government, he however said the NICIS 2 was invented to tackle this anomaly.
He said the reason cargoes are distributed to these four sheds in the terminal is to manage space constraints
He said it was wrong for freight forwarders to want to punch their jobs before the arrival of the vessel.
"During the time we were operating under ASYCUDA, you can punch your job before ship’s arrival and even chose the officer that would clear it, but under NICIS, it is the system that would select the officer", he explained.
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