….as WCO Confers merit award on MD NPA, Mohammed Bello Koko
ZAINAB JUNAID
Just as the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR, recently deepened the collaboration between the Nigeria Customs Service and the Nigerian Ports Authority, the World Customs Organization has conferred a merit award on the Managing Director of the Authority, Mohammed Bello Koko at the just concluded International Customs Day 2024 celebration.
The award, signed by the Secretary General of WCO, Mr Ian Saunders, was conferred on Bello-Koko for contributing greatly to the creation of dedicated Customs command for the Export Processing Terminals, licensed and certified by NPA to grow Nigerian exports.
Speaking at the WCO International Customs Day ceremony, Mohammed Koko affirmed that the renewed collaboration with Customs has led to noticeable reduced cargo dwell time and ship waiting time which has already decongest the Ports.
According to him, “The collaboration also gives fillip to our commitment to the deployment of the Port Community System (PCS) which the NPA has propelled to the final phase of consultancy under the technical guidance of the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
“The PCS is germane to promoting efficiency and making our ports competitive as it lays the groundwork for the National Single Window.
“Our commitment to positioning the Lekki Deep Seaport as transhippment hub to service the maritime needs of our landlocked neighbors will also benefit greatly from this collaboration. This alignment of vision between NPA and Nigerian Customs portends great fortune for trade facilitation and national prosperity.
Maximizing the opportunities inherent in our littoral assets as a maritime nation rests heavily on this collaboration. I therefore wish to commend and appreciate the CG and his team for this new direction and assure everyone of our unwavering commitment at NPA to this noble objective,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, the CGC had earlier visited MD of NPA, Mohammed Bello-Koko, on Thursday, January 25, 2024, to explore areas of improving port efficiency to facilitate trade.
In their discussion, Adewale stressed that “NPA desires to achieve port efficiency, and we believe that in customs, Ports efficiency will help to facilitate trade. NPA, in all its programs, tries to improve the competitiveness of our Ports, and this aligns with our vision.
“We want to make our Ports more efficient. When our Ports are more efficient, it will translate into better efforts in revenue generation. So anything and everything that will help to reduce the time and the cost it takes to conduct business in our ports are those things that we are going to be exploring in collaboration with NPA”. He stated.
