Last week, Truck Transit Park (TTP) Limited, operators of the electronic call-up system announced the introduction of Nigeria Export Proceeds (NXP) as a prerequisite for booking export trucks on its eto platform. The new guidelines are effective as from today(Monday).
In a statement issued last Wednesday and sent to all its stakeholders, Truck Transit Park disclosed that the new measure was sequel to the directive of the Federal Government, through the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).
The firm explained that the new measure is essential to ensure that all export transactions are properly documented in adherence to the government regulatory standards, even as it hinted that it has had series of engagement with stakeholders ahead of the June, 3, 2024 take-off of the new measures.
“Following NPA and government directives, and a series of stakeholder engagements on the introduction of Nigerian Export Proceeds (NXP) to facilitate export processing via the eto electronic call-up system, we are pleased to announce the completion of the configuration transition procedures and the readiness to commence implementation accordingly”, the firm said in a statement which was sighted by our correspondent on Wednesday.
Sources hinted that the new directive is meant to further tighten the loopholes on exporters who have been abusing the Central Bank of Nigeria directive on repatriation of exports proceeds.
The CBN had introduced the Nigerian Export Proceeds as part of its effort to increase foreign exchange liquidity in the country. In achieving this, the apex Bank had directed all banks in the country to keep records of names, addresses and Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) of all exporters.
But, giving an insight into how the NXP measures will work at the ports, the TTP said: “Before an Export booking is made to the EPTs, the Exporter must provide a valid NXP Number, and it is validated on the NPA CBN NXP Portal before the Export booking can be made/validated”.
It added that, also, “before an export box is allowed to leave any of the EPTs, the container number is automatically checked on the NPA CBN NXP Portal. The NXP Status of the Export container must be on the final status”.
While stressing that the new initiative will take effect from Monday, the 3rd of June, 2024, the firm explained that, “all export boxes booked or in transit to the port before this date will not be impacted by the new policy”.
It stated that, “it is crucial that all stakeholders, starting from the deadline, ensure strict adherence to the stated guideline, the NXP application number must be provided at the time of booking export trucks on the Eto platform”.
“We urge all stakeholders who are yet to align/comply with the government NXP procedure to take the necessary steps to ensure compliance with this new requirement before the implementation date”, the statement added.
Explaining further, TTP said that: “With the new arrangement of NXP, all potential exporters would be mandated to provide their respective NXP application numbers for their consignment before the booking is activated”, even as it stressed that, “this improved procedure mandated by the NPA and the government is to ensure that the booking of export boxes to the port must be preceded by a corresponding NXP application for such consignment”.
According to the service provider, “the new initiative is expected to streamline and improve the processing of export boxes at the Export Processing Terminals (EPTs) by ensuring that only export boxes whose NXP are at the final stage of approval can be released from the EP’T’s to the ports, while trucks that are not at the final stage of the NXP process will not be released to the port until they have fulfilled this requirement as mandated by the Authority”.
