Speaking to Pointblanknews.com on the frequent breakdown of the platform, the National Chairman of the 100% Compliance Team of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, NAGAFF, Ibrahim Tanko, said though it is difficult to say the exact figure, it runs into several hundreds of millions of naira daily.
He also said if there are 10,000 boxes being cleared from both Apapa and Tin-can Island ports at the time of the breakdown that lasted for two days, multiplying N26,000 by two days and by 10,000 boxes gives one about N520 million.
He expressed worry that the federal government seems not to be aware of the huge waste of resources as a result of the constant system collapse, as a result; the Compliance Team have petitioned the minister of finance for action to be taken to address the pain that importers and their agents are subjected to.
“Imagine the quantum of losses incurred by thousands of containers trapped by the downtime at most of the ports and terminals. Even the banks cannot transmit information about duties collected on behalf of the federal government.
“In addition, they were to speed up Customs and trade processes for both traders and government agencies. The interface occur generally in the breach, from the traders’ zone in the portal to the Customs zone could take days and interconnectivity is far from being realised,” he noted.
Tanko further noted that a visit to their head office in Media City, Dubai showed that unlike the lackluster service provide here, their services over there is world-class efficiency and seamless system.
He accused Webb Fontaine of deliberately operating outdated infrastructure and soft in Nigeria that has resulted in a huge financial loss for which they do not get refund or explanations.