The Federal Ministry of Finance have commended the management of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) for introducing the Revenue Invoicing Management Systems (RIMS) in order to double its revenue and to boost the nation's economy and as well as meet the financial expectations of the Federal Government.
A senior official of the ministry who craved anonymity told journalists at the weekend that with the full automation of the operational process of the NPA, its revenues from the ports would exceed its projections based on the positive efforts of its management
The official said the overall budget performance for 2013 and 2014 showed that NPA was doing fine. He said with the Port reforms, management of the NPA had been able to monitor the activities of the terminal operators to ensure strict compliance and track revenues through the several automation platforms they have introduced.
"With the introduction of Revenue Invoicing Management Systems (RIMS), the current management of NPA under the leadership of Mallam Habib Abdullahi will be able to track where the revenue is leaking and it was based on his commitment that they have been able to achieve over 95 per cent of their annual budget in the last three years."
“To double its revenue and surpass the budget target, what NPA needs now is the trade facilitation role of other government agencies. NPA has put its house in order with the cadre of the people that are currently leading the agency. But there is need for the Federal Government to ensure that the role of other agencies makes it very easy for any of the land-locked countries in West and Central Africa to know that the goods that are passing through Nigerian ports are safe, secured and will be delivered wherever they are needed,” the official said.
Speaking with reporters after the launching of RIMS in Lagos last week, NPA Managing Director, Abdullahi said NPA has achieved a milestone in its journey to achieving full automation of the operational processes at the nation’s sea ports.
“As you are aware Ports operations involves a network of processes and documentations along the chain of activities from the port of loading to the port of destination. Effective coordination of the activities makes the integration of the processes through automation absolutely necessary in order to facilitate seamless operations thereby reducing both costs and time.
“Today, we are presenting the Revenue Invoicing Management System and Customer Portal that are fully convergent and real time platforms for our processes, which will lower operational cost and shorten the time for documentation. These platforms fully integrate the electronic flow of information for business–to–customer and business–to–business streamsreal-time, with higher availability and flexible architecture. The platforms are also fully integrated with all our existing solutions such as Oracle Financials, Oracle Human Capital Management, NPA Pay direct via Interswitch and Electronic Ship Entry Notice (eSEN).
“The introduction of this system has the potential to improve our service offering, improve our partner relationship, create efficient payment method, maximize revenue and minimize loss associated with fraud and revenue leakage”
“Similarly, our Billing Application, some modules of which are already operational in all port locations, will soon proceed to the next stage. Currently, it covers payment processes in areas such as Lease Fees, Service Boats, Passenger boats, General Bills (Jetties and Trawlers), and Oil Terminal Dues (OTD)/Compulsory Pilotage Rates (CPR). The next stage will cover Throughput Fees, Estate Bills and Provisional/Final Bills.
“It is obvious that the introduction of these solutions will facilitate business growth with high performance and unlimited scalability of the operations of the Authority. This is evident from statistics which have shown that cargo throughput increased from 46,150,518 metric tons in 2006 to 86,603,903 metric tons in 2014 indicating an 87% increase during that period which is due in part to our continued efforts at improving processes.
Permit me to say that with the focus of the President of the Federal Government of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, for monumental change in the country, the Authority will continue to introduce initiatives in line with best practices that will ensure that we remain efficient, transparent and accountable to our stakeholders and the good people of Nigeria,” Abdullahi said.
Speaking with journalists on what they intend to achieve with the new platform, NPA’s Executive Director Finance and Administration Mr. Olumide Oduntan said based on our expectations the RIMS solution will improve cargo based revenue by 52 per cent in one year and 65 per cent subsequently.
He also acknowledged that the e-ship entry notice initiative introduced by the NPA has improved Gross Tonnage (GRT) based revenue by 38% between 2014 and 2015.
Oduntan assured the government and Nigerians that before the end of November this year, “operational leakages would be a thing of the past in NPA.”
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