B’Odogwu: Customs Takes Delivery of Six State-of-the-Art Scanners, Sets for Commissioning

—As TMP Trains 10,000 Port Stakeholders

By DAPO OLAWUNI

There are strong indications that the Nigeria Customs Service has taken delivery of six out of the expected 67 scanning machines to be deployed under the Customs Modernisation project, even as the service is now set to commission and deploy these scanning machines for effective operations under the B’Odogwu trade platform.

This indication was first dropped by the General Manager of Trade Modernization Project (TMP), Mr Ahmed Ogunsola at the Town-Hall meeting organised by JournalNG held at Rockview Hotel in Apapa, Lagos recently.

Also confirming the report exclusively to DAILY TREND on Tuesday, the National Public Relations Officer of Customs, Assistant Comptroller Abdullahi Maiwada said one out of the scanners is a gantry scanners which is already being installed at the Apapa Port.

Giving further breakdown, Maiwada said “Out of the six scanners, we have one gantry scanner which would be placed in Apapa, we have mobile scanner to be placed at Tin Can Port. We also have four cargo scanners; one would be at the Muritala International Airport in Lagos, one would be at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport Abuja, another one would be in Kano, and another in Port Harcourt” he said

He confirmed that the civil work for the installation of the gantry scanner in Apapa has since commenced

Providing further insights, the TMP General Manager, Ahmed Ogunsola, said the scanners have already been cleared out of the ports and the customs are now in the process of commissioning them to complement the B’Odogwu platform.

“The five scanners have arrived Nigeria, we have cleared customs, we have left the ports, we are now in the process of commissioning them and making them active as we speak.

“We are going to see a new regime in terms of how we handle cargo inspection, and in doing that, we have also brought in the state-of-the-art cargo scanners that emit very low radiation.

“The days when people are worried about radiation in terms of scanning, those days are gone. These scanners give you radiation exposure that is lesser than if you were flying from Nigeria to China for a year”

“The scanners are newly built and they include special technology features. Some of them have artificial intelligence built into them in terms of recognizing cargo that are coming into them.

“We also have fast scanners that are able to scan 200 trucks an hour that are coming in as part of this configuration as well. So that is what we are putting in place” he said

Ogunsola also assured that the TMP as technical partners to the Customs, have have also done new network deployments in 35 area commands of Nigeria Customs Service.

“They are all brand new, and we have a combined 5 gigabits per second nationwide connectivity for Nigeria Customs Service alone.

In terms of sustainability, he revealed that 10,000 stakeholders have been trained under the customs modernisation project, including Customs officers, clearing agents, terminal operators, shipping companies and the banks.

“We have trained over 10,000 people to date. Some of those are Nigeria Coast Guard Service officers, some of those are stakeholders. For example, members of NAGAFF, members of ANLCA have also been trained, various terminal operators have been trained.

“We are working with 56 authorized dealer banks, they have also been trained as well. And we are also working to make sure that everybody that is going to be having one thing or the other to do with Nigeria customs does it effectively and does it very well.

“Documentation is very key. We are making sure that we are keeping track of our solution architecture in terms of changes that will be provided. We are ensuring that Nigeria Customs Service has access to all the manuals, all the drawings.

“And one thing we’re doing for sustainability, which is very key, is that all software licenses that we are procuring, they are all being procured in the name of Nigeria Customs Service. So there is no holding them to ransom of any kind.

“Tomorrow when the project ends, we just make our hand back and those licenses belong to them forever.

“In terms of information security, we’re working towards ISO 27001 combined in terms of standards. We have already developed and now we are implementing about 27 policies in line with that. And then we are working very hard towards the very key aspects of that, cultural reorientation.

“Ownership is also very key. Part of what we’ve done is that we’re not waiting for the handback period. Right now, as we speak, the administrative access to the entire systems that we’re building are in the hands of Nigeria Customs Service.

“They control it, they operationalize it. What we have to do is to facilitate the availability of the technology assets, and then we’re jointly delivering on the project” he said