By Stephen Ubanna
Last Friday, June 3, 2022, all roads led to the Seme/ Karke, joint border, between Nigeria and Republic of Benin. Comptroller Bello Mohammed Jibo, Seme Command Area Controller, had received Wamkele Mene, the South African born Secretary General, African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCTA, on behalf of Hameed Ali, a retired Army Colonel and Comptroller General, Nigerian Customs Service, NCS.
Mene, the AfCTA, Secretary General, who was impressed by what he saw on ground may have used the opportunity of the visit to encourage the Customs Comptroller not to relent in his efforts in encouraging the export of Made IN Nigeria goods within Abidjan-Lagos corridor, stressing that theAfCTA Secretariat had received a grant Commitment of 36 million United Kingdom, UK, pounds sterling for the corridor.
An Appreciative Mene had said that the grant would be used ‘’to address the infrastructural challenges along the corridor. He was said to have told the Seme Customs Area Controller who was beaming with smiles that the African Development Bank, ADB, under the close watch of Akinwumi Adesina, a former minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, during former President Goodluck Jonathan Administration is also involved in raising funds for the Abidjan-Lagos corridor to make it easier for movement of goods from one country to the other.
The AfCTA Secretary General , who could not hide his feelings had said that the Continental Trade Secretariat would not only channel all the funds mobilised from the different sources to the provision of infrastructural facilities alone along the corridor but would also focus on the purchase scanners and other digitalised equipment to ensure productivity and efficiency in the movement of transit cargoes.
He was to have given an insight of what he saw when he went to the port of Mombassa, in Kenya, where he was showed the control that is digitized for the East African Community, made up of Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Southern Sudan, Tanzanian, and Uganda.
He had said that Control room comprises of equipment that could help them to access what is in a truck that is moving from Kapala, Capital of Uganda, to the port of Mombasa. He had revealed that the officer in the Control room with a click of a button will see what is in the truck, an indications that the Leadership of the Economic of West African States, ECOWAS, Sub-region still have a lot to do to cue into the AfCTA project to make their traded goods competitive.
The South African may have shocked many when he disclosed that the member countries of the East African Community, EAC, did not pay for the digitisation of the Control room with their money, stressing that they had mobilised the money to from other sources to do so, which the ECOWAS Authorities could do without member countries paying for it.
The AfCTA boss may have gladdened the heart of Jibo, the Seme Customs Command Area Controller when he disclosed that the Secretariat on its own would continue ‘’to mobilise resources to resolve the infrastructural challenges within the Abidjan-Lagos corrodor’’, descried as the busiest in the African Continent.
He had said that the AfCTA Secretariat intervention in the Abidjan-Lagos corridor will include’’ inter connectivity’’ adding that those who think that it may appear to be an insurmountable barrier, may have to do a rethink . Hear him: ‘’We will look at what ECA and other sub-regions in the African Continent have done and to improve on the system they had introduced in other to address the Abidjan-Lagos challenges’’. NAN, had reported that AfCTA Secretariat had promised that ‘’it will deploy similar system in the port of Mombasa within the Abidjan-Lagos corridor’. This may have informed why the British government made available the #36m to the Secretariat to be used to address the infrastructural needs along the busy corridor.
There are indications that officials of the Ghana based AfCTA Secretariat are also working closely with Afreximbank to see what intervention they can give ‘’to help in trade facilitation within the Abidjan-Lagos corridor to reduce the dependence on the British government for intervention funds.
‘’We want to adopt an integrated approach by mobilising funds from those we can influence to bring more resources so that what we can replicate what had happened in East Africa Community can in the Abidjan-Lagos corridor’’, Mene had said. He had said that AfCTA Secretariat has entered into discussions with the Commissioner for Trade in ECOWAS, to compliment the work they had done to achieve the desired result in the Sub-region.
Giving an insider information on the movement of transit cargoes from one country to the other in the African Continent, the Ghanaian born Secretary General of AfCTA, had said that ‘’the agreement establishing the rules, Customs Procedures , harmonization and trade facilitation, has been worked out and were very clear’’.
He averred that it may not be in any country’s interest ‘’to impose additional charges on goods that are on transit because it will not make trade competitive’’, noting that ‘’it will make traders think twice about transiting their goods through the particular corridor.
This is where Patrice Talon,President of Benin Republic and the country’s Customs Administration may have to do a rethink on the extra charges imposed on Nigeria –bound cargoes since the reopening of the Seme border that was closed by President Muhammadu Buhari, in August 2019, in December 2021. It is not surprising why manyNigerian bound transit cargoes have been abandoned at the Autonomous port of Benin, Cotonou, by the importers because of the high cost of clearance from the port.
The AfCTA helmsman, may have alluded to the situation in Nigeria, when he remarked , that he is’’ very happy to hear that Hameed Ali, a retired Army Colonel and Comptroller General, Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, had fully , along the Abidjan-Lagos corridor. The officers were said to have been properly grilled to ensure that no such illegal checkpoints would be mounted again on the corridor that may inhibit movement of goods and services within the corridor.
Mene has given his words that AfCTA Secretariat would work closely with the NCS , to address other challenges, that may crop up on the corridor.He had urged the NCS, Authorities, not to be in a hurry, to address the challenges along the Abidjan-Lagos corridor, because ‘’it took the East African Community about 10 years to reach its present level of Competitiveness where goods can leave the Container ship in the port of Mombasa, Kenya, and arrive in Kampala, Uganda, in less than three days. He is optimistic that that in the next ten years, the Abidjan-Lagos corridor will be ‘’the best performing corridor in the African Continent’’.
Comptroller Jibo, may have spoken the mind of Ali, the Customs Comptroller General, when he revealed that ‘’interconnectivity gap was the major factor limiting trade facilitation in the ECOWAS Sub-region’’. He had said to the hearing of the AfCTA Secretary General that some of the equipment that were purchased for connectivity in the ECOWAS Sub-region were still lying fallow in the Command, which is an open invitation to Mene to intervene to help in putting it to use.
NAN had reported that Frank Matsaert, CEO, Trade Mark Africa , Contractor in-charge of assessing the Abidjan-Lagos corridor, had listed its key findings of challenges that should be followed up to enhance trade facilitation in the Sub-region such as infrastructure, connectivity gap and limited connectivity, confirming what the AfCTA Secretary General And Comptroller Jibo had said. Matsaert, had identified other problems such as ‘’ high trade trade cost, logistics capacity and Professionalism, informal trade highly complex, lack of cross border traders awareness, security concerns and limited corridor approach’’.
He may have taken advantage of the AfCTA Secretary General visit to Seme Customs Command to reveal that in ‘’implementing the road Map for the Abidjan-Lagos corridor, it would take three phases. According to him, the phase one of the project would take one to two years,while phase two would take three to five years to be completed.
. The phase three, he had said, would take another four to seven years. Mene, the AfCTA , CEO, may want the Abidjan –Lagos corridor Contractor to hasten up in the completion of the projects to advance trade facilitation in the ECCOWAS Sub-region to make its goods competitive.
