Nigeria Customs Service Develops App to Automate Transire

By Bliss Okperan

The Tincan Island Port (TCIP) Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has created a mobile application to automate its bond and license unit, Transire.

At the unveiling of the app on Thursday, the Customs Area Controller, Comptroller Dera Nnadi, said the need to automate the Bond and License Unit had become imperative for administrative and procedural ease of doing business in the command.

Speaking at a sensitization program on the automation process, Mr Nnadi informed participants that the application was developed by Superintendent of Customs Samuel Bello, to reduce the volumes of documents being deployed in managing Transire.

“We realized that there are volumes of documents being deployed in the business process of managing our Transire; we also realized that using those manual documents will expose that environment to possible interventions by people who want to mismanage it.

“So, we felt that in the spirit of automation and customs, that aspect of our job needs to be improved. It’s a tally mechanism that will give us a grip on the movement of containers until they get to the owner’s warehouse,” he said.

However, Mr Nnadi noted that although the app was not yet linked to the Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System II (NICIS), he is optimistic that it will be approved when presented to the management of the agency.

One of the stakeholders present at the presentation of the app, Mr Chuks Okereafor of 5-Star Logistics, commended the command for coming up “with this good idea to automate the Transire process.

“I believe this will help Customs to be able to document and monitor all activities that have to do with Transire process,” he added.

He further stated that, “We, the terminal operators, are ready to collaborate with Customs to make sure that this Automation stands and it will add value to the delivery and all other processes.”