By Providence Ayanfeoluwa

The Managing Director, Nigeria Port Authority, NPA  Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho, has said that the implementation of National Single Window, NSW will promote Nigeria’s standing in the Committee of Maritime Nations and provide the reputational capital necessary for actualizing the case for the admittance of Nigeria into the Category ‘C’ of the International Maritime Organization, IMO.

He said this at a stakeholder’s conference in Lagos, even as he harps on the impact of single window and trade facilitation through most single-line processes at the ports.

Dantsoho said that the NPA views the project as one of the most strategic port development initiatives since the port reform of 2003, saying: “Now, the reason is the single window operations relate to over 500 million container movements in the world and over 50 billion tons of cargo through the sea, the land,, and the airports.

“This concrete move by President Bola Tinubu, to implement the NSW in Nigeria will by far help to deepen the competitiveness of our ports and position the good people of Nigeria to the greater benefits of global trade.

“In our own special way, the NPA has been pursuing the idea of the port community system which is a forerunner to the single window nationally.

“The purpose of the port community system is primarily for Nigeria to comply with the dictates of the IMO, Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic, whose main aim or objectives are to prevent unnecessary delays in maritime traffic, to aid cooperation between governments, and to secure the highest practicable degree of uniformity in formalities and other procedures on the port”, he said.

Similarly, he affirmed that the World Trade Organization’s trade facilitation agreement requires member states to implement the single window system.

He said|: “It should be observed that the World Trade Organization’s agreement is now in force and therefore, the establishment of this NSW is mandatory for Nigeria.

“In recognition of the importance of this noble objective, the NPA had ahead of time enlisted the technical guidance of the IMO for the deployment of the port community system, PCS, which, like I said earlier, is a precursor to the NSW, and only recently upon our fulfillment of the necessary requirements, Nigeria was admitted as a member of the International Port Community System Association to join top-class ports in the region like Tangier Med Port of Morocco, the Port of Teman in Ghana, the Togo Port, Ivory Coast, and the Republic of Benin among others”, he said.