The Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mohammed Bello Koko, has disclosed that the Port Community System, a single-window IT platform being developed by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in partnership with the authority and has now reached its second phase, will be completed and deployed next year.
Bello-Koko stated this when he received the IMO Consultants who were in Nigeria on an assessment tour at the NPA corporate headquarters in Marina, Lagos at the weekend.
The IMO consultants have been in the country for over 10 days to understudy the automation platforms at various government agencies, including the Nigeria Customs Service and the Nigeria Immigration Service to harmonise them under one port community system.
Bello-Koko, commended the IMO team for their painstaking efforts at reaching out to all designated agencies and stakeholders and understudying their systems to ensure seamless integration into one port community system, which has become the global practice among most maritime nations of the world.
Bello-Koko, who stated that digitising the port processes is at the top of his to-do list, said the Port Community System is a platform that everyone can plug in to reduce human interference, improve port efficiency and block leakage.
According to him, the IMO has come up with a regulation that stipulates that every port must automate fully by 2025, but the NPA has set 2023 as a target to fully automate the Nigerian ports.
He said the port community system will not do away with e-Customs or other platforms that stakeholders in the port have, rather it will complement them.
“The IMO is funding part of this, and the first phase of the meeting was done virtually. The IMO consultants are in Nigeria and they are currently in Lagos for a 10-day on-the-spot assessment after which they go and come back for the final part,” Bello-Koko said.
He said the final part will be funded by the NPA and that on the return of the IMO consultants, they would be visiting every port in Nigeria.
The NPA boss noted that the system will be a game-changer for the country as it will reduce wastage and waiting time of vessels, as well as make the ports very competitive.
“ It is something that has been deployed in other parts of the world but we do not have it in Nigeria. We will do whatever it takes to make provision for it in our 2022 budget,” he added.
Giving insight on how far both organisations have gone with the process, Bello-Koko said the IMO consultants visited offices of the Nigeria Customs Service, Nigeria Immigration Service and other stakeholders to see the kind of IT deployment these agencies of government and other stakeholders have.
He said by doing so, the IMO will be able to develop a port community system that will be robust, all-encompassing and bring everybody on board.
According to the NPA boss, this may be the foundation that would lead to the setting up of the National Single Window, which is a requirement for a modern port that enables trade facilitation and ease of doing business.
“We believe that one of the most important things is to deploy IT for our ports to be efficient because it reduces human interference, improves efficiency and blocks leakage. We are about to start harbour automation, which is our main function. This will cover the time the vessel comes in from the fairway buoy to the berthing and clearing of the vessel.
“Harbour operations will also bring interface between NPA harbour’s department and other users, including the towing company and terminal operators. We also have multiple IT tools, which we are currently integrating,” he said.
The leader of the IMO team, Gadi Benmoshe, assured the NPA management that the team would do a good job for the country, which is believed would launch Nigeria’s seaports into a new realm of efficiency, user-friendliness, operational cost reduction and global.
