The
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele recently announced that
the CBN is almost set to launch a Trade Monitoring System (TRMS) in October
2019. This is an automated system that is designed to reduce the length of time
required to process export documents from about one week to just one day. This
is a system designed by the government to improve the processes involve in
shipping goods and services out of Nigeria. This is a much-awaited initiative
and innovation of the Central Bank which has been delayed for so long. Many
people in the sector has been clamoring for the need to automate export
processes in Nigeria in order to ensure that the timeline required for
processing of documentation is significantly reduced.
Another
value of the TRMS is the fact that it will likely correct the discrepancies
seen in the export data reported by different agencies of government in the
country. For example, the export data from the Pre-Shipment Inspection Agent
(Cobalt) is different from the export data from CBN, the data from CBN is
different from the data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
This distortion in the data is results from the uncoordinated way in which the
data is being collected without any thorough monitoring. That is why the
launching of the TRMS is extremely important.
It is
also important for CBN to understand that the reason why some export data
cannot be captured in Nigeria and put this into consideration in the
development of the TRMS. This is because some foreigners are sent into Nigeria
to export as a foreign representative of manufacturing companies. Another
category use export to clean illicit funds via trade-based money laundering
while the last category deliberately hides their export from the eyes of
government to avoid the payment of tax. The individuals, who are foreigners
should be of interest to CBN because, they come into Nigeria to buy commodities
and ship them out to their companies who use these raw materials. Since they
are not planning to set up any business in Nigeria, they partner with a
Nigerian to be able to operate an account to receive dollar and convert it to
Naira to be able to buy the raw materials.
It is
also interesting to know that no products would leave the shore of Nigeria,
especially containerized items, without passing through Nigerian Customs
Service. The question we should begin to ask is, whether the NCS is aiding the
exportation of products out of Nigeria without documentation. The TRMS will be able
to help answer that question if eventually NCS will have to see that the NXP
for any transaction is registered on the TRMS before they will approve such a
transaction for loading on the ship for exportation out of Nigeria.
When
CBN issued the policy that NXP number must be stated on the Bill of Lading, it
was as if that will be the solution to ensuring that every export out of
Nigeria is documented. But alas! The exported circumvented this. What has
happened was that exporters just simply concoct their own NXP number and they give
it to the shipping line to put it on their Bill of Lading in line with the CBN
regulation. If the shipping line is made to insist that they get the actual NXP
document from NCS to extract the NXP number on the document themselves, this would
have curb this menace of undocumented export but the CBN regulation was not
thought through and therefore did not envisage these sharp practices and make hence
no provision was made to prevent it.
However,
with TRMS, it will be necessary for the shipping line to have access to the
portal to be able to check the detail of the transaction themselves after NCS
approval in order to pick the NXP number directly and insert it on the Bill of
Lading. This means that after custom have approved the goods for shipment, the
shipping line should be able to spot this transaction on the TRMS to obtain the
NXP number from the application and put it on the Bill of Lading. If this
becomes the case in the export clearance process in Nigeria, it will significantly
prevent the export of products out of Nigeria without documentation. So, at the
end of the day, data obtained from outside the country from bodies like World
Trade Organization, World Top Export etc can be similar to that which NBS and
CBN are releasing to the public. It is not enough for CBN to launch the TRMS,
it has to ensure that all the agencies involved in the clearance of goods for
export in Nigeria are carried along in order to get their commitment to support
the implementation of the TRMS in order to make it a success.
Finally,
I will like to commend the effort of the management of the CBN for eventually
actualizing the dream we have all have regarding the automation of the export
business documentation and processes in Nigeria.
