Organised Private Sector Exporters Association (OPEXA) has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN to urgently address the acute delays in shipments being faced by non-oil exporters since October when the bank enforced a new regulation on electronic processing of Nigeria Export Proceeds (NXP) Form on Trade Monitoring System (TRMS).
OPEXA is the sectoral association representing the interests of the non-oil exporters in the country.
The CBN procedure stipulates that shipping companies are required to access the TRMS portal to generate the NXP document for capturing on the Bill of Lading (B/L).
The Executive Secretary of OPEXA, Paul Olarewaju in a statement on Friday, said that the Organised Private Sector (OPS) or even the other government agencies such as NEPC and customs were not consulted before the sudden enforcement of the new procedure.
“We welcome reform to streamline export logistics and support all efforts to generate transparency in procedures, however, it needs stakeholders’ consultation and adequate preparation to be effective.
“The unilateral enforcement by CBN has led to chaos that containers have piled up and warehouses of exporters are full as there is a long queue in uploading the data.
“As agricultural commodities form the bulk of the Nigerian non-oil exporters, the exporters fear widespread cancellation of orders due to delays.
“Unfortunately, this is happening when we are in the midst of a pandemic and Nigeria needs FOREX,” Olarewaju lamented.
OPEXA executive secretary however appreciated and welcomed the need for reforms to streamline export logistics in the country.
He described the recent circular dated Oct. 6, 2020, introducing the TRMS as “a positive development,” adding that its members were bona fide non-oil exporters and would ensure compliance with the export procedures.
He, however, decried that the lack of coordination among implementing agencies had led to a lot of hardship and delays being faced by the exporters.
“We seek CBN’s urgent intervention to call stakeholders meeting to discuss the issue and find the way forward,” he said.
Olarewaju said currently, shipping lines and terminal operators’ mandatory requirement was that customs Single Goods Declaration (SDG) be provided before containers can gate into the terminal.
According to him, this is proving out to be a major bottleneck to all exporters as the newly introduced process does not give room for containers to be gated in unless the validation process is fully completed by NCS.
“It is a big challenge to exporters that carrier will only inform terminal operators to allow containers access into the terminal only after receiving the NXP validation certificate or valid SGD.
“This is resulting in huge delays whereby loaded trucks have to wait for three to four weeks before being allowed entry into port exposing export cargo to pilferage. This is exacerbating the existing port congestion,” the association said.
OPEXA said due to the unavailability of empty containers exporters’ warehouses were getting filled and were being forced to suspend procurement from farmers, while produce was exposed to the elements and deteriorating.
He quoted a World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index(LPI) 2018, on the benchmarks of 160 countries to help identify problems and opportunities for improving their performance on trade logistics, Nigeria was ranked 110, trailing behind its regional peers Kenya (68), and Ghana (106).
On the way forward, Olarewaju said that urgent CBN action was required for the shipping lines to start by instructing all the shippers that the Original B/L’s would only be issued once the SGD or Valid NXP was available.
