… Says the system will reduce monotony of Demand Note, Logistics Cost
The Registrar/CEO, Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria, CRFFN, Mr. Kingsley Igwe has recommended a National Single Window Proficiency Certification for freight forwarders in Nigeria.
Harping on the need to latch onto the benefits of the National Single Window for efficient trade facilitation, Igwe, who was a panelist at the recent National Single Window Stakeholders Forum expressed concern over inadequate requisite professional knowledge by freight forwarders in Nigeria.
He said the certification should be a prerequisite for licensing freight forwarders to practice or logistic service providers to operate, including the issuance of customs license because of the recent improvements in the practice today.
The Registrar posited that this is one of the measures by which compliance can be administered.
He said: “Any Tom and Harry can obtain Customs license and enter the port and start rendering freight forwarding services.
“It’s not supposed to be so. It’s not the same in our sister countries that have adopted the National Single Window system. But Nigeria is coming to this, it is one of the measures by which compliance can be administered.”
He advised the organisers of the conference to partner CRFFN, noting that the body plays the role of grassroots implementation and trade facilitation monitoring.
“Hence, a partnership with CRFFN to provide National Single Window proficiency training, will form the basis for proper adoption of this technology”, he explained.
To buttress the need for the certification, Igwe recalled that the National Single Window is an initiative introduced by the World Trade Organisation, WTO under the trade facilitation agreements that partnering countries enter into.
He affirmed that one of the tools for enhancing trade facilitation in each country is the deployment or adoption of the National Single Window which most countries have actually adopted and that Nigeria is following suit.
Elaborating on the benefits of the National Single Window, Igwe pointed out that the WTO trade facilitation agreement stands on four pillars.
“The first being transparency which the National Single Window ensures, the second is harmonisation, then standardisation and simplification of processes. I give you an example, in Nigeria today, customs procedure is not standardised, it is seemingly not simple across all customs stations in Nigeria and that’s one of the issues that brings about high cost of logistics and trade generally.
“So because of the human interface we encounter or the freight forwarding community encounters in their trade processes, there’s a whole lot of costs that is associated with it.
“Some could be due to ignorance, some could be deliberate. Whatever you can give as factor but because of the transparency nature of the National Single Window, if freight forwarders are properly educated and trained to use the National Single Window, all of those other ancillary costs would be cut off; because they would have known what to do, how to do and do it well and there will not be any issues.
“The typical example is when a freight forwarder happens to under declare their goods during declaration or it is identified or discovered by the Customs that the duty they paid is seemingly lower than what they should pay. There’s what they call DN (Demand Note) and that DN comes in huge figures. So, I believe National Single Window will reduce the monotony of DN issuance and that will reduce cost. I’m just giving you one practical example.
“Yes, in terms of efficiency, I think this is where I would like to collaborate with the organisers that we as the regulatory body for the logistic services in Nigeria, we have stations all across the nation”, he explained.
Photo: Mr. Kingsley Igwe, Registrar/CEO, CRFFN.
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