Single Window Would Make Goods Clearance More Efficient – Consultant

A Consultant with West Blue Consulting; Dr Timi Austen-Peters has said that Single Window (SW) operation would assist the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) in making clearance of goods more efficient, cheaper and faster.
Austen-Peters said this in Lagos at the NCS Single Window Conference titled “Achieving the Nigerian SW Vision- Feasibility Study Findings’’.
He spoke on “Single Window Feasibility Study: An Enabling Environment for Single Window in Nigeria.’’

A Consultant with West Blue Consulting; Dr Timi Austen-Peters has said that Single Window (SW) operation would assist the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) in making clearance of goods more efficient, cheaper and faster.
Austen-Peters said this in Lagos at the NCS Single Window Conference titled “Achieving the Nigerian SW Vision- Feasibility Study Findings’’.
He spoke on “Single Window Feasibility Study: An Enabling Environment for Single Window in Nigeria.’’
According to him, “Single Window is a facility that allows parties involved in trade and transport to lodge standardised information and document with a single entry point to fulfill all imports, exports and transit-related regulatory requirements. He added that “if information is electronic, the individual data elements should only be submitted once”
He explained further that, one of the key issues underpinning SW is appropriate legal framework that provides certainty, trust, security and privacy of transactions in the exchange of information via SW mechanism, whether electronic or otherwise.
He said that NCS should seek the consent and support of the Ministry of Finance in the establishment of the SW and for it to act as the lead agency.
Austen-Peters said that suitable, clear and effective provision should also be made for corporate governance of the SW platform.
He suggested that customs should put in place adequate data sharing structure to meet international standards and clarity and confidence that stakeholders desired.
Austen-Peters also suggested a legislation that would enable NCS or all other agencies to share and disseminate information.
He said that there should be a memorandum of understanding among all government agencies and clients that would be involved in information dissemination.  
To protect the large investment that goes into creating the huge database that SW will become, Nigeria should consider enactment of similar legislation on data protection in line with international best practice, he said.