• Adeniyi: No real joint border post without interconnectivity
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and its Benin Republic counterpart are moving to link their customs systems in a bid to end information gaps and make the Seme-Krake border more efficient for cross-border trade.
Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, disclosed this yesterday during a joint assessment visit to the Seme border post with the Director-General of Customs of Benin Republic, Raouf Malehossou.
Adeniyi said the physical infrastructure of the joint border post had been completed for years, but the absence of a common system for real-time exchange of customs information had continued to limit its effectiveness.
His words: “Without interconnectivity, this is not a joint border post. It is a border post sharing a car park at best.”
The NCS boss said Nigeria was ready to help bridge the technological gap between the two administrations through a common data exchange arrangement.
He explained that the proposed system would allow customs declarations made in one country to be seen by officials in the other in real time, while transit goods could be tracked from their point of origin to destination.
Risk profiles and enforcement alerts generated by either administration would also be shared promptly, he added.
Adeniyi said the initiative would strengthen trust between the two Customs administrations and support legitimate traders operating across the Nigeria-Benin border.
He said the system could also ease some of the difficulties associated with cross-border commerce involving different languages, currencies and national procedures.
The Comptroller-General, however, acknowledged that technology alone would not solve all the challenges at the border.
He said the proposed interconnection would instead provide the foundation for further reforms aimed at improving border management and trade facilitation.
“If we get this simple system right, if we get the productivity of our system right, we can build every other thing on top of it,” Adeniyi said.
The development is expected to deepen cooperation between Nigeria and Benin on border management and facilitate smoother movement of legitimate goods along the busy Seme-Krake trade corridor.
