Government Says Single Window Deployment Will Ease Trade Bottlenecks At Seaports

The National Single Window (NSW) Secretariat, on Monday, assured stakeholders of the Federal Government’s commitment towards deploying the NSW to reduce bureaucratic bottlenecks hindering trade.

Speaking during a stakeholder sensitization  programme for  the NSW project in the South East and South-South region, the director of the NSW Secretariat, Tola Fakolade,  said  the platform would enable the country become a new business destination, saying, all bureaucratic bottlenecks hindering trade would be drastically reduced.

LEADERSHIP reports that the NSW project is expected to be operational by first quarter of 2026 as directed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as part of the move in achieving the $1 trillion economy by year 2030 in line with world economic growth projections for countries. Fakolade emphasised the government’s commitment to simplifying trade processes and improving transparency across Nigeria’s ports.

He, however, applauded the efforts of the Nigeria Customs Service, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and others for their pioneering roles in digitisation of trade processes.

Fakolade assured the stakeholders of the federal government’s full commitment towards deploying the NSW to enable the country to become a new business destination, while hoping that all bureaucratic bottlenecks hindering trade would be drastically reduced.

“It will ensure transparency in the system and enthrone predictability when transacting business, eventually reducing cost of doing Business and person to person contacts in the trade ecosystem,” he stated.

In his keynote address, the Registrar, Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), Kingsley Igwe, highlighted the NSW’s benefits to traders, noting that importers and exporters stand to gain from reduced bottlenecks, faster clearance and improved competitiveness.

He urged stakeholders to take advantage of the system and leverage it in their businesses, describing it as a one -Stop Shop platform that houses all government related revenue collection agencies, importers and exporters as well as other regulatory agencies, granting them a single access for declarations.

In his opening remarks, the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adeniyi, represented by the Zonal Coordinator, Customs Zone C, Headquarters Port Harcourt, Assistant Comptroller General of Customs, Kamal Mohammed, welcomed the stakeholders, insisting that the event was a defining moment for trade facilitation

The Customs boss called for collaboration of all stakeholders to make the project work, emphasising that no single organisation can achieve meaningful success in isolation but through collaboration.

He stated that, with National Single Window, clearance process and procedures as well as documentation would be easier and faster, thereby reducing cost of trade even as he said that collective purpose was the watchword.

Also present at the event, the President of the Association of Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Emeka Nwokeoji and the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Shippers Council, Dr Pius Akutah, applauded the initiative and called for stronger collaboration among stakeholders to ensure its success.