The Nigerian Shippers Council announced that its complaints handling procedure had saved stakeholders N2.4 billion in the last five years.
Mr Rotimi Anifowose, NSC’s Director of Planning, stated this recently in Lagos, when the council received the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Mr Adegboyega Oyetola.
According to Anifowose, the council gets complaints from regulated service providers and users via the Port Service Support Portal.
Anifowose went on to say that some of the complaints included arbitrary charges, container deposit refunds, and import and export fraud, among other things.
He further claimed that the council’s creation of the Nigerian Ports Process Manual saved the country an average of $20,000 per day in vessel demurrage between 2021 and 2022.
“We have put in place the Nigerian Port Process Manual and the International Cargo Tracking Note.” As the principal agency in implementing the NPPM, the council sanitized the actions connected to joint vessel boarding, joint cargo examination, and the Operation Free the Corridor initiative. This amounted to $12.4 million, which converted to N5.4 billion at the official exchange rate in 2022.
“In order to reduce the instances of human touch in cargo transportation and eliminate manual documentation for efficient service delivery, the council is encouraging the digitalization and automation of all port processes in Nigeria.” This resulted in the digitalization of all processes by shipping and port service providers,” Anifowose noted.
Earlier, the minister expressed enthusiasm for the International Cargo Tracking Note, which is housed with the Shippers Council, and stated that his administration will seek its adoption to enable effective cargo monitoring and transportation.
“Also, the port community system platform, which serves as a single point of contact for all sector actors, would facilitate doing business.” As a result, we would take it seriously. I went around to inspect the situation of our ports, and it is really disappointing. “I’m not blaming anyone because the ports are ancient,” he explained.
