FG mulls port automation to reduce cost

The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, has stressed the need for the government to automate port processes to cut down the cost of doing business in the country.

Adegboyega, who stated this recently during a media chat with editors in Lagos, said some of the costs at the ports do not add to the government’s revenue; rather, they are a problem in the system.

“If you want to be able to automate your processes, then we need the cost to come down, because sometimes some of these costs are not actually costs or revenue to governments; it is the problem of the system. We will have to do a lot of modifications; we will have to reduce the cost. For instance, NPA has not reviewed costs for the past 32 years, so it is not a balance,” he said.

Oyetola said that the government is working towards reducing the number of agents that operate at the ports to seven as part of efforts to boost operational efficiency.

However, he admitted that some of the agency has the backing to be at the port.

“When we make proper recommendations, we become team-dependent, so we know that the possibility of a risk is reducing when counting to seven. Our ultimate goal is the ability to reduce the amount of work, like what I was telling you; most of them are also involved, but we are still working on that; we can’t do this without the concurrence of the Federal Government.

We need to achieve that. The second one we have to do is, we know the reduction of the cost of clearance of boats, and we need to oppose that,” he said.

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