NIMASA commences total digital manifest management for ships berthing at Nigerian ports
The Nigerian Government through its Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has announced the commencement of a digital manifest management for all ships berthing at Nigerian ports, in a bid to standardize operations of Nigeria’s shipping industry.
The Director-General of NIMASA, Dr Bashir Jamoh, disclosed in a statement on Monday, adding that the agency plans to completely phase out physical transactions with cargo manifests and Sailing certificates.
NIMASA boss disclosed that in line with the Federal Government’s Executive Order on Ease of Doing Business, they are committed to improving turnaround time of vessels, reduction of human interface in majority of the transactions with stakeholders.
He explained that in the bid to ensure transparency and professionalism that the sector requires to grow the agency has improved its operational relationship with other sister agencies.
According to him, tremendous progress has been made in the determination to convey sailing clearance for vessels to the NPA electronically.
“We also receive and process manifests electronically. This has improved efficiency leading to improvement in the turn-around-time of vessels calling at the nation’s ports,” he added.
He highlighted that the process of submitting and processing manifests has improved, having been reduced from 72 hours to five hours for Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) and larger container vessels.
He said that the accruing benefits of the new system include the total digitalisation of all the agency’s processes expected to be completed by 2022.
