ASSOCIATION OF CONCERNED FREIGHT FORWARDERS RAISES ALARM OVER CONTINUED DELAY IN CARGO CLEARANCE PROCEDURES
… Says Seasoned Maritime Practitioners now Tagged Incompetent Over Situations Beyond their Control
By Mcanthony Onuoha
A group of maritime practitioners, Association of Concerned Freight Forwaders of Nigeria, has raised alarm over delay in cargo clearance procedures, especially in procurement of Pre Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR), and the financial burden, loss of manhour and psychological trauma it has continued to cause importers and their agents.
According to the group, transitioning from
Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System (NICIS II)
to B’ODOGWU and then to the newly introduced National Single Window (NSW) has posed serious challenge in procurement of relevant Customs documents for clearance of cargo.
Recall that there were series of protests against former Customs Internet Service Provider, Webb Fontaine, by clearing agents, which was one of the reasons why the Nigeria Customs introduced B’ODOGWU, which also came with teething challenges that slowed down clearing activities and frustrated most freight forwaders and their importers.
Today, we are facing the challenges of National Single Window, which has continued to emasculate businesses.
“Procuring Pre Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) has become very challenging resulting in undue financial burden to importers and their agents.
The problem of NSW is not the concept; it is the execution. In Nigeria’s case, several issues have made it to struggle:
According to the group, one of the challenges is poor inter-agency integration. Whereas
Agencies like Customs, NAFDAC, SON, etc., are supposed to work seamlessly on one system. In reality, many still operate their own parallel systems. Without full integration, NSW becomes just another layer instead of a solution.
The second one is Institutional resistance
Some agencies and stakeholders benefit from the old manual processes—delays, discretion, and unofficial charges. Moving to a transparent digital system threatens that, so there is passive resistance or slow adoption.
The third one is that weak technical infrastructure
system downtime, poor connectivity, and unstable platforms affect usability. If the system is not reliable, users naturally revert to manual workarounds and that has been contributing to the delay witnessed in cargo clearance.
According to the group, “It has been discovered that different agencies use different data formats and requirements. Without standardization, the system can’t properly validate or share information—leading to issues like failed Tax ID verification or duplicate processes.”
“A project like this needs a strong central authority driving it. When responsibility is fragmented or “hijacked” by different parties, direction is lost and execution becomes inconsistent.”
“Insufficient stakeholder training is also a challenge as
many users—both in government and the private sector—are not fully trained on how to use the system effectively, leading to errors and frustration.”
The group stated that it has noticed that on paper, everything looks ready. But in practice, key processes are still not automated end-to-end, so users still face delays, demurrage, and repeated submissions.
Furthermore, the group stated that “though the introduction of the NSW was not ill intended but the bottom line is that the National Single Window (NSW) in its current state has introduced more complications than solutions. Instead of streamlining trade processes, it has effectively duplicated existing procedures, forcing users to navigate both the NSW platform and multiple agency systems simultaneously.”
“The lack of full integration with key agencies, persistent system inefficiencies, and absence of enforcement have rendered the platform counterproductive. What was meant to simplify operations is now causing delays, increasing costs, and exposing importers to avoidable demurrage.”
“It is difficult to see how the intended objectives of efficiency and transparency can be achieved under the present structure. A system that adds layers without eliminating existing bottlenecks only worsens the problem it was designed to solve.
Urgent attention is required to address these gaps, as stakeholders are currently bearing the burden of an incomplete and poorly coordinated implementation.”
The group regretted that “the bottlenecks created in the process of transitioning from one platform to the other have resulted in tagging seasoned maritime practitioners as incompetent while some of them have continued to lose their importers over situations that are beyond their control.
