FEC approves electronic cargo tracking scheme for Nigeria

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the introduction of an Electronic Cargo Tracking Note Scheme for the country.

Minister of Transportation, Alhaji Mu’azu Sambo, made this known to State House correspondents, at the end of the Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said: “Council considered and approved our submission to put in place for Nigeria, as it is in 26 other African countries, an Electronic Cargo Tracking Note Scheme in order to among other things take care of under declaration at Ports, secure our imports and exports and provide transparency in cargo invoicing and declarations.”

Sambo further stated that the scheme, when fully implemented, could raise the revenue profile of Nigeria to about 90-235 million dollars annually.

“The implementation of the scheme will solve the problems of under declaration, concealment and wrong classification of cargo, which are the primary causes of revenue leakages, insecurity and general security issues at the borders.

“The deployment and implementation of this state of the art ECT scheme will ensure the elimination of loopholes on border operations and boost the revenue of the Nigerian government in form of duties, Port charges and levies.

“It is expected that this scheme will generate revenues to the Nigerian government ranging from about 90 million dollars per annum to a peak of about 235 million dollars per annum,” he said.

The minister said the proposed electronic platform would be deployed by a consortium of five companies made up of a foreign technical partner and four local companies at no cost to the Nigerian government.