The Reconstituted Presidential Task Force Committee on the reform of the Nigeria Customs Service has endorsed the Training and Capacity Building Programme so far implemented by Cotecna Destination Inspection Limited for the men and officers of the Nigeria Customs Service.

Chairman of the Presidential Task Force, Dr. Ochi Achinivu, who recently led his team on an on-the-spot assess-ment of the facilities at the Lagos seaports, described Cotecna’s robust capacity building drive as the needed tonic to enhance the performance of the Nigeria Customs Service.

According to him, the programme is an affirma-tion that the international firm is committed to fulfilling its part of its subsistence contract with the Federal Government which is focused on the transfer of knowledge and skills to officers and men of the service.

He noted that with two years to the end of the seven-year contract which terminates in 2012, concerted efforts should be made by all the service providers to enable the officers garner more skills and experience in a well-laid out transition plan.

He said: “It is only when officers have been fully trained to take over the current functions, roles and services being undertaken by the service providers such as handling X-ray scanning equipment, risk manage-ment and valuation and classification, that the company can be said to have fulfilled its part of the contract.

“The contract requires it to equip the NCS with the necessary competence needed to take over and effectively operate the Nigeria Destination Inspection Programme.”

Cotecna’s Managing Director, Mr. ‘Tayo Rabiu, disclosed that with the contract provision to train 350 NCS, his company has far exceeded the requirements.

According to him, 1,020 Customs officers have been trained by Cotecna in specialised fields, including core customs functions and technical areas. From this figures, 547 of them received training in Image Analysis/Scanner Operations between January 2006 and October 4, 2010.

In addition, about 1,100 Customs officers were jointly trained by the scanning service providers across the nation.
Mr. Rabiu has, however, stressed the issue of space constraint as a major hindrance to the timely exit of containers at Apapa, pointing out that the holding bay for scanned cargo is rather not adequate.

As a result of the space constraint, he said containers are forced to remain on cue for a long time while waiting for the release of those already scanned to exit before space is created for more trucks to be ushered in for scanning.

To address this issue,  the Cotecna boss advocated for the harmonisation of the Customs ASYCUDA/ Risk Management profile with that of service providers, saying such harmonisa-tion would help in  producing a single Risk Management System for the Nigeria Customs Service and also encourage pre-scanning of containers to ease the congestion experienced at the site, and ultimately facilitate fast clearance at the port.

The task force committee was in Lagos on performance assessment visit to the offices of all the Destination Inspection Service Providers namely, Cotecna, SGS, Global Scan System and Webb Fontaine.