Q: What necessitated the need for a National Single Window (NSW) in Nigeria?
Single window is a trade facilitation measure being pursued by several countries around the world to help simplify, reduce cost and time in international trade around the world.
Therefore it is very vital for Nigeria to use a national single window to remain relevant and competitive in today’s international trade network. There is actually an on-going negotiation at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to mandate the creation of a single window environment in member countries. It is therefore an initiative which any progressing country must take seriously.
Q: Single window is said to be a one-stop-shop for traders, can you elaborate on this?
One-stop-shop for traders means providing a central point for traders who are the exporters, importers and the transit operator. Creating this central point where they can access all documents, data and processes to enable them comply with the import, export and transit requirement in their business. Now this central one- stop- shop will reduce significantly the time and cost previously spent in completing forms, navigating traffic, queuing up in office halls, submitting parts of documents which most times usually contain the same elements which result in duplication. So this one- stop- shop will help provide an effective and customer centric environment for our traders which will enable them focus on their core businesses instead of focusing on the time and effort to administer their core business and to help them most especially compete in the international market. This, I am sure, you will agree with me is key to any nation’s economic growth.
Q: How literacy-friendly is this Single Window Initiative?
I think the revolution of mobile phones goes to answer this question. Mobile devices can be quite complex, if you take a smart phone where you can send or receive emails, you can send text and receive text from across borders. Now you even have Blackberry Messenger, (BBM), and you have social media which you can access from your mobile device. And you can go into the most remote areas where you can have our parents and grandparents using mobile phones which a few years ago, we would have thought impossible. So when systems are designed and developed with everyone in mind, it becomes a literacy neutral system as have been demonstrated by mobile phones where you have grandparents receiving mobile payments from their children and grandchildren across the world. I believe that once designed properly,it is a system for all. It is a very beneficial system to both the literate and illiterate, and informal sector migrating to formal.
Q: How can this system be sustained, do we have the backbone that will ensure it does not crash?
When you talk about backbone you will talk about the system backbone itself and also have to look at the nation’s infrastructure. Are the communication channels available? Is the internet bandwidth capable of handling these loads, is the electricity adequate and the roads? We know that the single window is a trade facilitation system, but it has to be complemented by other areas. If you are able to facilitate trade by speeding up the documentation requirements, what about the road to transpotrt the goods across. Are you going to have ports congestion because you sped up the initial documentation process to now create an artificial backlog because you didn’t consider other elements? So the infrastructure of the nation has to be considered, there needs to be the right electricity level, right communications network, and if not, have an interim arrangement where provision is made with continuity plans in place whilst working towards a fully functioning national environment. Also, the system itself has to be designed to have backups and follow-up plans and to know what the capacity is going to be so that the system can be scaled up or upgraded as volumes increase. These checks have to be put in place to ensure that the system does not fail, because a failure in the system has significant impact on the nation’s trade, shutting down international trade for one day is totally disastrous. Therefore, it is really important that contingency plans are put in at every level of the system, from the actual system to the infrastructure that supports the system.
Q: What impact will this have on the Nigerian economy?
As mentioned earlier, single window is a measure to reduce the time and cost of cross-border trade whilst introducing transparency and predictability into the international trade supply chain.
The benefit are immense, because on a micro level, it will boost the competitive advantage of Nigeria and its traders on the international markets while increasing government revenue, boost foreign direct investment, introduce simpler, faster clearance and release processes, integrate risk management across stakeholders and promote entrepreneurship, because if you show that it is simple to participate in cross-border trade then you will have new entrants into the market who are going to seek opportunities in cross border trade. It will also provide safe and affordable goods and services to the average man on the street. In summary, the effective implementation of the single window will be of significant benefit to the government, the private sector and the citizens of the nation.
Q: How do you hope to integrate all stakeholders involved in this process?
Collaboration amongst stakeholders is key to the successful implementation of the single window environment, and stakeholders cut across the private and public sector. And the private sector is the user and beneficiary of the system and the public sector provides the services as well as some private sector participants, the service to enable the private sector operate international trade. A number of sensitisation and awareness programmes such as the national single window stakeholder conference which was held in Gwagwalada recently as well as other sessions such as the ones with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) who are private sector members. We have also been organising sessions to gather and document business processes across the stakeholders groups which include both private and public sector and also to understand the ICT readiness and organisational needs of these stakeholders. Technical working groups have also been set up in the area of business process analysis, ICT, change management and stakeholder engagement and legal framework. This is to ensure that this will be a system that will organically grow across all the stakeholder groups to be able to achieve a target vision of the single window environment.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Juliet Alohan
Quelle/Source: Leadership Newspapers, 04.09.2012
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