Following the traffic gridlock presently being witnessed at the ports access roads at Apapa which keep commuters for hours on the roads, the Zonal Coordinator of Zone A of the Nigeria Customs Service, ACG Victor Gbemudu has called on the licensed Customs Agents as well as the importers to take advantage of the trade hub portal and other electronic platforms put in place by the Service to make their dealings with the service easier and convenient for them.
Gbemudu who was speaking in an interview with newsmen in Lagos stated that the agents as well as the importers no longer need to be physically present at the port to transact business with the service as such transactions can be done by the said agent or importer in the comfort of his home or office thus the essence of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) drive of the service.
He pointed out that this is a paperless regime where people don’t need to carry documents around as one can comfortably input whatever data he had on the system which the system would pick and process forthwith.
According to him,” you don’t even need to be at the port because you can stay in the comfort of your office and do your business, that is the essence of ICT”.
“Actually, you don’t need to be at the port, you can see our CPC as it were, it is open, we don’t have the traffic whereby you ask for document because all the documents that you need, you can also access them through the system and this i s a paperless regime anyway”.
“So, we don’t move around with documents, we just work with what you give the computer and that is what we work with and we are comfortable with that”.
He noted that the service had been transformed over time arguing that since the introduction of the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR), collection of duty had been up going and that they expected that it would get to the zenith as the months go by.
The Customs boss also hinted that with the comminssioning of the ICT training centre and a communication tower at Apapa recently, revenue collection and productivity of Zone A in particular and the that of the service in general would be greatly enhanced especially in all climatic conditions.
While pledging the readiness of his officers to work round the clock at the shortest possible notice including Saturdays and Sundays, he however bemoaned the poor state of infrastructure at Apapa as according to him, “getting to Apapa today was almost impossible”.
Gbemudu however commended his officers for the sacrifices they were making in that difficult times towards ensuring that there was no revenue loss to the government as according to him, some of the officers had to sleep in their offices in order to meet up with work schedule because if they should go home, with the traffic gridlock at Apapa, they would not be sure when to come back the next day.
Speaking on what effort the service was putting in place towards contending the activities of internet hackers, Gbemudu had this to say,” let us bot bedevil ourselves with hacking into the system. We have been able to fine-tune some of them and we have been able to take some measures to prevent that”.
