The Federal Government is set to boldly advance towards the nation’s dreams of a fast-track cargo clearance as stakeholders flag off a workshop on the Nigerian Single Window (NSW) project next week , with resource persons drawn across international borders.
The Federal Government is set to boldly advance towards the nation’s dreams of a fast-track cargo clearance as stakeholders flag off a workshop on the Nigerian Single Window (NSW) project next week , with resource persons drawn across international borders.
The NSW, a facility that would allow parties involved in trade and transport ventures to lodge standadized information and documents with only a single entry point to fulfil all their import, export, and transit-related regulatory requirements, is expected to save time, hitherto spent on cumbersome documentation processes.
One of the key resource persons on the workshop, Ghanaian-born Valentino Mintah told newsmen that research has shown that a major reason behind delayed clearance regime in Africa was largely as a result of the presently complex mode of relevant information/ data exchange between stakeholders and government agencies, hence the need to adopt this United Nation’s endorsed model by Africa, especially, Nigeria.
“If information is electronic, then individual data elements should only be submitted once” she highlighted, aligning herself to the World Customs Organization (WCO) description of the Single Window as “a cross border, intelligent facility that allows parties involved in trade and transport to lodge standadized inforation electronically, via a single entry point, to fulfil all import, export and transit-related regulatory requirements”.
“The current international trade environment involves complex international trade processes with disparate systems” she explained further, stressing that the optimum goal of the current two-day Single Window holding Tuesday and Wednesday next week, is to create an integrated workspace of data and business processes for all trade related activities and stakeholders, in an aim of creating a customer-centric service environment.
Mintah posited that while the workshop would provide direct opportunity for stakeholders to directly make their inputs, it may in addition, also enable participants develop local indices as key performance indicators (KPIs) for the measurement of success and achievements of the NSW programme as mapped out, under the Trading Across Borders Rankings.
“The World Bank Trading Across Borders Index measures and ranks countries on the basis of time, cost, number of processes and documents required for import and export”, she stated further, emphasizing the need for Nigeria as a natural continental leader to champion the role of evolving a robust integrated, holistic, multi-phased approach that would be essential towards realizing the shared values of all stakeholders, by focusing on the 4Ps, which she simplified as people, processes, platform and policy.
It would be recalled that Mintah’s made a presentation on the subject of Single Window last week during the recent Comptroller General of Customs (CGC) Conference in Katsina and received a very loud ovation. It was thereafter generally agreed that the next week brainstorming workshop at the Rockview Hotel, Apapa Lagos may signpost when the programme might actually be flagged off, in the new year.
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