Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Dr Zainab Ahmed on Tuesday described the present practice of physical examination of cargoes at ports and land borders as laborious and time consuming.
According to her, it was causing huge loss of revenues to the federal government.
Zainab said this while commissioning three newly installed NUCTECH mobile scanners for the Nigeria Customs Service at the APM Terminals in Apapa.
The Minister also disclosed that the Customs service have trained 120 officers that will operate the scanning machines affirming that the technology would further modernize the operations of the NCS in line with International best practices.
She said the commissioning of the scanners installed at Apapa and Tin Can Island Ports both in Lagos and Onne Port in Port Harcourt is a milestone in the Service efforts to expedite Customs operations, achieve ease of doing business, facilitate trade, prevent port congestion, increase revenue generation to government and improve national security.
She said the ministry is making efforts to procure more such equipment for the country’s seaports, land Borders and airports.
Dr. Zainab said “It would be recalled that the Federal Government in 2005 contracted the provisions, installations, operations and management of X-Ray Scanners and Computerized Risk Management System for the examination of goods on Build. Own. Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis, for a period of Seven (7) years to three (3) Scanning Service Providers (SSPs) namely: Cotecna Destination Inspection Limited, Societe Generale De Surveillance Limited and Global Scan Systems Limited.
Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service, Col Hameed Ali said the Service will be fully responsible for the management and operations of this equipment.
He assured that with the new scanners, the cargo scanning process will not only reduce the stress associated with positioning, off loading and taking inventory of containers. It will store recorded images in a safe format easily accessible by all agencies from the comfort of their offices.
