A licensed Customs agent, Nwangwu Emele, has stressed the need to upgrade the nation’s seaports to ensure that set goals are achieved.

Emele, who is also the Managing Director of a Port Harcourt-based freight forwarding firm, Emelco International Limited, gave the recipe for efficiency in the nation’s seaport on Tuesday during an interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt.

He argued that all stakeholders must work towards making  Nigerian ports friendly and efficient in service delivery, noting that if the 48 hours cargo regime is to be feasible, the operators should put all the necessary parameters in place. According to him, every effort should  be geared to ensure trade facilitation in the nation’s seaports.

“We must observe the operational capability of all the stakeholders, particularly the principal ones such as the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), service providers, shipping companies, concessionaries, banks, transporters and the security agencies in the ports.

“Before a port is referred to as being friendly and efficient, it must adequately deliver importers’ goods in good time, charge fairly reasonable fees for its services, and avoid high rate of tariffs”.

He maintained that a situation where one cannot take delivery of one’s goods from the port in two weeks means that such a port was completely unfriendly and inefficient.

Emele argued that it was wrong to blame the management of Customs for the woes of the ports since the service only handle a quarter of what passes through it. He expressed delight that the management of NCS, under the leadership of Alhaji Inde Dikko Abdullahi, faithfully implemented the reforms and restructuring of Customs since he was appointed last year.

“The former long room, with its usual bad image for delay, is no more there. In fact, the name was sometime changed to Custom processing centre (CPC). It has been given a facelift by the Comptroller General of Customs who always ensures that only very few highly intelligent officers who do not need the persence of importers or agents before their work is done are posted there”.

“This was made possible through the various methods and systems, which includes the self-assessment by importer and the agents, e-payment and of course, the backing of ASYCUDA++. All these have  worked  like magic to eliminate human contact in order to reduce the delay in clearing goods in ports”, he said.

He noted that the major problem the ports are facing today in attaining quick delivery of goods are caused by other stakeholders, which federal government brought to ports. He said there must be checks and balances so as to know whether all the stakeholders are up to date in their responsibilities, so that, “we can get the maximum benefits from the ports”.