Approved Government Agencies in Ports: Paying Lip Service to Ease of Doing Business

Recently, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), released the list of eight agencies approved by government to operate at the port.

The list, which was an update to the one released in 2017, added the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to the initial seven approved as residents in the port.

The other anointed agencies include Nigeria Customs Service, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA),Nigeria Police, Department of State Security (DSS), Port Health and Nigerian Immigration Service(NIS).

Government, in its wisdom to streamline the unwieldy number of its agencies which cluster clearing procedures at the ports, approved eight agencies to stay inside the port to enhance cargo delivery.

“As part of efforts to improve efficiency in port operations, the Vice President and chairman of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has directed the Nigerian Ports Authority to ensure that only eight federal government agencies are allowed to operate and have physical representation at all port locations in the country. The NPA said in a statement.

We find this statement ironical to the professed intention of government to engender seamless port operations.

nigeriamaritime360.com considers government position on this matter antithetical to the objective of facilitating ease of doing business at the port.

To us, the earlier seven agencies granted approval in 2017 to stay at the port were too unwieldy and now to include NAFDAC on the list is one addition too many.

We consider eight agencies operating at the port as not only too many and unnecessary but anachronistic to the modern and technology-driven port operations.

Given the roles and core functions of the eight approved agencies to the operations at the port, we believe only five of them merit a place in these facilities.

The five agencies which we recommend should stay inside the ports due to their statutory responsibilities of ensuring seamless port operations are Nigeria Customs Service, Nigerian Ports Authority, Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Nigerian Immigration Service and Ports Health.

The NPA merit a place as a virtue of its status as the landlord as well as NIMASA as the industry regulator.

The immigration service and Ports Health are the first contacts with any vessel which berths at the port.

While Port Health determines the health status of passengers and crew members of the vessels, the immigration ensures no illegal immigrants come through the ports.

For obvious and undisputable reason that all ports are Customs’ ports, the Customs occupies a prominent place as the agency at the heart of cargo clearance procedures.

We believe that the remaining three approved agencies such as Nigeria Police, NAFDAC and DSS should not have been granted approval as their residency at the port will not enhance efficiency but instead clog the quick cargo delivery process.

We are not suggesting that the functions of other three agencies are less important or inferior to others; rather, what we are saying is that their relevance to cargo clearance process would not diminish a bit if they are asked to operate outside the ports.

The same reasons why government asked other agencies such as Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), NDLEA to operate outside the port is the same reason we recommend that Police, DSS and NAFDAC should operate outside the port.

Just like SON and NDLEA, NAFDAC could be called upon whenever their services are needed.

Nigeria Police as law enforcement agency could also be called in to maintain law and order in a situation where it is envisaged, that peace is being threatened or a crime is committed.

The residency of DSS at the port to our mind is most unnecessary given the fact that they are supposed to be undercover agency.

The operatives of DSS are not supposed to be seen as they are meant to engage in discreet intelligence gathering.

They are supposed to be anonymous who can come into the ports like ghosts, conduct their investigations on any infraction in importation process and pass on their findings to relevant agencies like police and customs for action.

Allocating offices to them inside the ports is laughable as their supposedly cover as secret agents has been blown.

Their work could also be enhanced by their sister agency, Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) which by virtue of its global spread, could help in intelligence gathering on any imports at the port of departure.

Let us put our argument into proper perspective.

The fulcrum of port operations is cargo clearance procedures.

If there is no cargo, there is no vessel and no port.

Port efficiency is measured by the speed cargo is discharged from the vessels, cleared through Customs procedures and exited.

While Customs drives this process, terminal operators enhance it as they take custody of the cargo and ensure its safety while going through the clearance process.

All other agencies are therefore performing adjunct functions to this process.

Apart from NPA,NIMASA, Port Health and Nigerian Immigration whose functions are clearly cut out for them and not directly involved in cargo examination and releasing procedures, other agencies who are angling to be in the port want to be part of the cargo delivery process, primarily for pecuniary interests.

Whereas they can come in whenever the need arises for their services , the urge to be part of the daily process for financial gains, more often than not, drives their passion to want to resident at the port.

Duly processed and cleared containers by Customs are often intercepted or impeded to exit early by either Police, DSS, NAFDAC, NDLEA or SON, (before they were banished) on spurious claims of “further investigations”.

More worrisome is the fact that our policy makers are conversant with the modern and automated port operations in other climes where manual procedures which engender human contacts are discouraged.

Allowing a multiplicity of agencies to be physically present at the port when they can interact on Single Window Platform is disheartening.

It would be recalled that in 2013, the Nigeria Customs Service under its former Comptroller General, Dikko Abdulahi, launched the Single Window Platform as part of efforts to facilitate the clearance procedures of both import and export goods.

But the concept has been frustrated to function as agencies that are to key into the platform have refused to comply.
The Single Window concept was developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 2005 as part of efforts to simplify, harmonize and standardise international trade procedures and associated information flows between trade and government and within government itself.

Through its UN Centre for Trade Facilitator and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT), UNECE defined Single Window as “a facility that allows parties involved in trade and transport to lodge standardised information and documents with a single entry point to fulfil all import, export, and transit-related regulators requirements”.

The practical goal of single window is to expedite and simplify the flow of information between traders and government while enabling the relevant authorities and agencies to have access to all information for their purposes. Some agencies have however shown unwilling to key into this platform due to their selfish gains.

We are disturbed by apparent lack of will power of government to compel relevant agencies which are bent on frustrating it for their own selfish interests to go on the platform.

Rather, what government finds convenient was to add to the list of agencies that will complicate cargo delivery process at the port.

We find it ironical that a government which publicly pronounced its desire to unbundle cargo clearance to ensure ease of doing business at the port will add to the existing agencies which, in the first instance, we consider unnecessary and unwieldy to be at the ports.

We are therefore constrained to describe the much publicised Executive order on ease of doing business at the port as mere ground standing to which government is merely paying lip service, if it cannot muster necessary political will to ensure that the Single Window concept becomes a reality.

It is by this singular act that the passion of government to promote safe and secured port environment where cargo delivery services are carried out with clinical efficiency and effectiveness could be realised.