By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has stated that majority of its ports have been 70% digitized.
The Executive Secretary of NSC, Hassan Bello stated this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday.
Bello regretted that they did not reach the intended target of 90 per cent.
“We have been working with shipping companies and terminal operators to ensure we make the deadline we set for the first quarter but we saw it was not feasible to attain 90 per cent digitisation.
“What we were able to do on the average was 70 per cent, but digitisation of the ports is a process in the making. We want this to happen as quickly as possible,” he said.
He said that digitisation would make Nigeria’s ports more competitive, noting that the country had competitors in West and Central Africa sub-regions.
Bello said that it was not easy to get to the 70 per cent port digitalisation, adding that they had the scorecards of every terminal and shipping companies that led to the tremendous improvement.
Speaking on the level of digitalisation of shipping companies, he said that Grimaldi had 88 per cent, Ocean Network Express 76 per cent, and CMA CGM 63 per cent, among others.
He added that some of those that scored 70 per cent had 20 per cent initially, but improved with the guidance of the council.
For seaport terminals, Bello said PTML had 92 per cent, and in Port Harcourt, Intels, BUA and Wact had 70 per cent digitalisation each. “Where we are having problems is on reforms and claims processes which is mostly manual but we have some that scored 50 per cent.
“Also, the second phase is the integration of systems because anybody can have online but there is a need to integrate with the banks for example and even the Nigeria Customs Serivces, ” he said.
