NAGAFF decries Customs’ server failure, vows to shut down ports if not checked

Maureen Aguta

The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders would be forced to shut down all the ports in the country if alleged incessant failure/breakdown of Nigeria Customs Service server is not addressed urgently.

This was the highlight of a letter written to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Wale Edun on Saturday by the Office of the National Coordinator of NAGAFF 100% Compliance Team.

The Team in the letter alleged that the alleged current intermittent server failure has been on for about three weeks.

The letter titled: Incessant and Chronic Nigeria Customs Service Server Failures and its Attendant Consequences, claimed that the alleged the failure of the Customs trading platform, has “have in no small measure occasioned an unimaginable hardship, demurrage, loss of revenue, and serious disruption of services in the maritime industry.

It added that the attendant losses are better imagined both for the freight forwarders and the Federal Government of Nigeria.

The letter, which its e-copy was sighted by Advocacy Times, was signed by the National Coordinator of NAGAFF 100% Compliance Team, Hon. (Dr) Ibrahim Tanko and copied to the Senate Committee on Customs, House of Representatives Committee on Customs, Chief of Staff to the President, Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority; among others.

The letter reads in parts:  The Honorable sir, we as stakeholders and users of the customs servers are going through a lot in the hands of our teeming customers, shipping companies and terminal operators. This is so as the terminal Operators charge the sum of N62, 000.00 (sixty two thousand naira) per day. The Shipping companies charge N58, 000.00 (fifty eight thousand naira) per day. For instance sir, we have an average of 1,600 containers trapped by the server failure in each of the ports of Apapa, TinCan, PTML and Kirikiri Lighter terminal respectively, with an estimated sum of N192,000,000(One hundred and ninety two million naira) being lost daily.

“Where this sum is multiplied with more than two thousand containers that are equally denied exit from off dock terminals, due to the server failure/breakdown, the consequential effect is better imagined than experienced. This had been a recurring decimal over time with the customs service provider, namely, WEB FONTAINE

“Sir, it is now being alleged that a new outfit or new service provider has been appointed to replace the WEB FONTAINE. If that is the case Honorable sir, we respectfully call for a total review of their contract for the circumstance and situation has degenerated to unbearable state. We are taken aback as to why such outfit that has over the time manifested gross incompetence is hired and allowed to oversee such critical infrastructure of the Nigeria customs service.

“Moreover, our association and other freight forwarders wish to know how and when the service contract was entered and consummated, why the server failures and breakdown is so frequent and unabated. There is so much pain and untold hardship, this has caused serious frustration, and also led to restiveness among freight forwarders. If not, our appeal and our untiring peace efforts, things would have gone out of hand.”

The Team concluded the letter by calling on the minister to use his good office to look critically into the server breakdown/failure, saying if the ugly situation persists, “we may have no other option than to shut down the entire Ports. Hence we implore you sir to intervene as soon as practicable.”