The Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mohammed Bello Koko, who was recently named by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a member of the Implementation Committee of the National Single Window Project, on Thursday met with the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi at the Customs Area Command, Apapa Lagos.
The meeting focused on infusing greater efficiency into Port Operations, especially around the export value chain.
Specifically, the deliberations focused on the elimination of duplication of Custom Export Desks undertaking multiple cargo checks from the NPA-licensed Export Processing Terminals (EPT) to the Port gate and also within the Port.
Also featured in the discussion was putting in place inter-agency modalities to ensure that 24-Hour Port Operations, which is a necessary precondition for Port competitiveness become a reality.
NPA boss and and the CG Customs agreed to synergize in the advocacy to get other government agencies such as NAFDAC, SON, NDLEA, NSC, among others “whose buy-in is crucial to the actualization of 24-Hour Port operations”.
Speaking further, Mohammed Bello KoKo, advised stakeholders to take advantage of the other Ports such as the Lekki Deep Seaport, and the Eastern Ports of Calabar, Warri, Rivers, and Onne Port, which in recent times have been recording tremendous growth.
The NPA Managing Director had ahead of attending the meeting undertaken a spot check of trucks queuing to enter the Port through the dedicated export priority lanes the Authority had specially created for export boxes.
