The Nigeria Customs Service and the Customs Administration of Benin Republic have expressed readiness to address diversion and fraud along the Nigeria-West corridor with the deployment of the SIGMAT, the interconnected system for the management of goods in transit.
The Comptroller General of Customs, Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi made this known during the official launch of the deployment of SIGMAT connectivity between Benin And Nigeria at Seme-Krake Joint Border Post on Monday.
This is even as he disclosed that the two countries intend to use the platform to foster inter-agency coordination and collaboration between both nations while also addressing cross-border issues affecting the two Customs Administrations.
“SIGMAT is aimed at digitizing and harmonizing Customs transit operations across our member states. The concept was conceived over a decade ago and the electronic platform was designed to achieve these objectives.
“Primarily, we want to improve the visibility of goods in transit. We want to combat diversion and fraud along the Abidjan-Lagos Highway Corridor. We also want to use the platform to foster inter-agency coordination and collaboration between us. And for our stakeholders, we want to simplify the procedures at the borders and by so doing, we want to reduce delays”, the CG began.
Continuing, the CG noted that SIGMAT is Nigeria’s strategic ambition to align with regional digital customs standards and to modernize the globalization of our trade portfolio.
He added that in the near future, “we will be able to expand the deployments of SIGMAT to additional border locations, particularly in places like Idiroko, and others. We will look forward to strengthening bilateral communication mechanisms to ensure timely technical engagements between our agencies and our institutions.
“And most importantly, we want to make sure that trade fosters revenue and prosperity. We want to enhance trade facilitation between our two countries.”
On her part, the Director General, DG of the Benin Republic Customs Administration, Mrs. Adidjatou Hassan Zanouvi disclosed that the platform will go a long way in reducing delay and enhancing trade facilitation between both countries.
“The technical launch for the SIGMAT platform, which is a very important milestone for the cooperation and the interoperability between Benin and Nigeria Customs, because it will facilitate the move of the goods and also will help our customs services to fight against any fraud, to have an exclusivity in collecting revenue and also facilitate trade.
“The system will really solidify and facilitate the move of the goods from Abidjan, which is already in the SIGMAT system from Abidjan, all the way to Benin and then to Nigeria, and also when goods are coming from Nigeria to use the corridor, SIGMAT.”
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