After months of delay, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has deployed cargo scanners at the Apapa and Tin-Can and Onne seaports.
This was sequel to so much uproar by stakeholders especially clearing agents and importers.
The deployment of the scanners comes over one year after the federal government procured scanners for the service to fasttrack cargo evacuation from the ports.
The non-usage of the cargo scanners by Customs, according to stakeholders, have hindered the federal government’s ease of doing business policy and increase the huge cost of doing business at the nation’s ports.
However, our correspondent gathered that the Customs has fully deployed the usage of the scanners at the various seaports across the country.
Speaking, an authoritative source reliably informed LEADERSHIP that the Customs Service has deployed the scanners at Tin-Can Island and Apapa ports.
According to the source, who craved anonymity because he’s not authorised to speak, said 150 containers were scanned in honours hours.
The source further stated that commands were waiting for the federal government to launch the scanning Service.
He said, “for sometime now, we have been making use of the scanning machines but only waiting for the Minister of Finance, Hajia Zainab Ahmed, to officially declare it open.
“The machine scan one container in three minutes meaning 20 containers are scanned in one hour.
“Also, the clearing agents are excited about it because it is faster, efficient and reduced cost of doing business at the ports.”
Also speaking, the spokesman of the Apapa Customs Command, Abubakar Usman, explained that the scanners had actually been operational for almost a month.
According to Abubakar Usman, “The scanners have been working for almost a month now. We didn’t launch it today as erroneously disclosed by some agents. We have been using it for almost a month now.”
Effort to speak with the national public relations officer of the Service, Timi Bomodi, proved abortive as calls weren’t connecting while messages sent to him were not replied as at the time of this report
Leadership