Bello gives antidote to 24-hour activities at Seaports, standard operating procedures
The Executive Secretary of Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), Hassan Bello, has opened up on the best way to achieve what he described as Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) at the nation’s Seaports.
In his submission at a town hall meeting on 24-hour operations at Seaports in Lagos Bello advised the Federal Ministry of Transportation and that of Power, Work and Housing to expedite action in fixing the deplorable roads leading to the ports, integrate the rail leading to the port for multi-model connectivity in order to ease the movement of cargo in and out of the port.
He added that explained that SOP should also be integrated with Nigerian integrated custom information system in order to save time, cost and enhance competitiveness of Nigerian Seaports.
According to him, for the presidential order on 24 hours port operations to be achieved, the port economic regulator should be allowed to act independently from any market interest.
Represented by Mrs. Juliana Saka, Principal Operations Officer, Commercial Shipping Department of the Council at the meeting, Bello noted that the challenges of faulty scanners in the port should be addressed urgently and that service providers should provide a back up in the event of system failure.
In his further submission, he said “There should be sustained enlightenment of freight forwarders and consignees on the need to make proper declarations as well as early processing of the documents before the arrival of vessels.
“Government needs to launch a common portal for all its agencies in the port to complete all import or export procedures with single input transmission at a single site.
“Government should equip the port with high tech-equipment and modern infrastructure in order for containers to be scanned during the discharge process. The Nigerian Shippers Council is presently championing the establishment of the Inland Container Depots,” Bello concluded.
