Get Guardian on GoogleThe National Single Window (NSW) management has disclosed that 99 per cent of the 9,800 cases of operational challenges on licence, permit, certificate and other documents (LPCO) involving the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) have been resolved.
Director of Operations, NSW, Peter Ekunkoya, who spoke at the weekend, during a media briefing, acknowledged that the initial disruptions experienced after the launch were largely caused by regulatory agencies’ data migration difficulties, gaps in documentation and overlapping regulatory mandates among government agencies.
He said the rollout of the LPCO model exposed major deficiencies in the quality of data received from agencies, particularly during the migration process.
Ekunkoya said that some data fields were either incomplete or entirely missing, making reconciliation with records from international partners difficult and creating delays in approvals.
He said the NSW team undertook a comprehensive cleanup and phased migration of the data, while also introducing temporary measures to prevent importers from being stranded.
He further noted that importers whose applications were affected by missing records were granted a grace period to clear consignments temporarily, especially where applications for product or shipment certificates had already been submitted.
Ekunkoya disclosed that since its inception, the NSW help desk recorded about 9,800 issues, with over 6,000 of them occurring within the first four weeks after rollout.
He added that the platform initially recorded an average of about 1,500 complaints weekly, but this has now declined significantly in the last four weeks to less than 900, and in some cases, 800.
On NAFDAC-related challenges, he said the situation was more complicated because the agency was already dealing with an internal backlog before transitioning into the NSW platform.
However, Director and Project Head, NSW Project, Tola Fakolade, while addressing concerns over demurrage waiver and delays experienced during the early stages of implementation, said discussions with terminal operators and shipping companies had led to an agreement to grant waivers based on evidence showing that consignments were directly impacted by issues in NSW.
He said shipping lines and terminal operators agreed against granting blank waivers for demurrage charges, citing fears that such concessions could be abused by traders.
The NSW project head noted that most of the technical issues affecting permit retrieval and processing had been resolved through collaboration with SON, NAFDAC and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
Fakolade said the platform had recorded significant improvements, adding that the digital platform is set to commence full rollout for shipping lines after concluding final testing with stakeholders across the maritime sector.
