The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the introduction of an Electronic Cargo Tracking Note Scheme for the country.
The 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.
According to him, the scheme when fully implemented can raise the revenue profile of Nigeria to about $90-235million annually.
“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.
“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 in 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 revenue, to the Nigerian government, ranging from about $90million per annum to a peak of about $235million per annum.”
Sambo said that 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.
