Nigeria Customs Service set to digitalise licenses, permits processing

The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, has concluded plans to digitalise the acquisition and renewal of its licences and other permits through an automated platform, aimed at enhancing operational efficiency and service delivery.Speaking at a stakeholders’ engagement on the Automation of Licenses and Permits, Comptroller Ngozika Anozie, Controller License and Permit Unit, Tariff and Trade Department, said that automation of every process in Customs procedures is essentially keying into the global best practices.Anozie also said that the automated process will bring about ease of doing business in the maritime sector specifically and would translate into a boost in revenue generation.She stated: “Automation will save importers, clearing and forwarding agents the stress of acquiring or renewing their Licenses and Permits as they would be sitting in the comfort of their offices/homes to initiate and complete the process.“Officers and men of License and Permit Unit, the bond seat unit of various Commands, will also be saved some stress, as all their responsibilities would just be ‘clicks’ on the systems in front of their desks, as opposed to carrying loads of files from one table to another and from one office to the other.“Automation will cut the cost of doing business and minimize movement risks for our stakeholders. They would no longer be jumping on buses or flights to and fro Customs Headquarters-Abuja, paying hotel bills plus feeding for days, to obtain or renew their licenses and permits.“Automation will minimize, if not eradicate fraudulent practices in the system, as every single document that is uploaded in the course of this process will be automatically rejected by default, if it is fake and accepted if it is genuine. ‘’License and Permit can now view assessments through the B’Odogwu to be sure that any company applying for fresh or renewal of licences or permits is not having unpaid assessments hanging on it.“Our stakeholders will now have the luxury of using the time they would have expended running from one Command to the other or to Customs headquarters Abuja, to achieve other equally useful objectives in their business value chain that would impact the growth and expansion of their businesses”.