Following
World Bank’s low ranking in the ease of doing business in Nigeria, Federal Government yesterday reduced the
export documentation from 10 to 7 while import
documentation was slashed from 14 to 8.
documentation was slashed from 14 to 8.
The Senior
Special Adviser (SSA) to the President on Trade and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole who announced this in Lagos
at a two-day sensitization workshop on ease of doing business reforms, said
that the directive takes immediate effect.
The SSA
regretted that Nigeria has been looked at as a difficult place to do business
and some steps have to be taken to relax some measures in the process of doing
business.
So, it
against this backdrop that the Federal Government decided to meet the
stakeholders in the maritime sector of the economy to rob minds and seek ways to remove certain bottlenecks in the
process of doing business.
“We have
identified training across borders as the
most critical areas in need of reforms in the Nigerian economy. It does
a number of things. In our diversification process, we all know that this
administration has a strong diversification push for exports. In our diversification
push, it is impossible to import and export without functioning ports. We started work in October
2016 on entry and exit of goods. In January we took it up basing on World
Bank’s training across borders indicator. We started working with Customs, Nigerian
Ports Authority, Shippers Council, terminal operators and a whole range of
stakeholders to identify the key problems. We scoped them and divided them into
short term and medium term and long term. So, we started with the short term.
We have a 60-day action plan which is ending on April 21.
This is one
of the key areas we have been working on. We have released some directives
through the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance has issued some
directives, the Comptroller General of Customs (CGC) has issued some directives
on palletisation of goods coming into
Nigeria. Because we want to save cost and time for SMEs in Nigeria, for anybody exporting from Nigeria or importing into Nigeria, the documentation
for export has been reduced from 10 to 7 and for imports from 14 to 8 and that
is with immediate effect” he said.
In his
presentation, Deputy Controller of Customs, Antony Ayalogu identified the
challenges in the importation process, saying that goods are not stratified
before they arrive. This, he said, leads to inefficient movement of containers
to yard.
According to
him, the scanners are not functional and physical examination of cargoes are
slow and tedious thus leading to
inefficiency in the ports.
Other
challenges include non-palletisation of goods and poorly-parked containers,
noting that the new procedure would accelerate pre-export documentation
procedure, increase effectiveness and optimize pre-arrival processing.
Recall that
the World Bank ranked Nigeria 182 out of 190 countries in the world in the ease of doing business.
Some of the
stakeholders present at the sensitization workshop include, Association of
Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), National Association of Government
Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Shippers Council, Nigerian Ports
Authority (NPA), Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Standard
Organisation of Nigeria (SON) etc.
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