The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has expressed its readiness to partner with the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) to build modern jetties for the marine unit.

The Comptroller General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, said this on the sidelines of the 2024 International Customs Day organised by the NCS.

The day had the theme: `Customs Engaging Traditional and New Partners with Purpose.’

Mr Adeniyi said the NCS needed to partner with the NIWA to build the modern jetties and to get a good and strategic location to site the jetties.

“I feel very happy that we have succeeded in getting the active participation of all our strategic stakeholders. What we try to do today is to emphasise the importance of collaboration as we have seen it work.

“Just yesterday, everyone saw a seizure that we made because of the collaboration with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, so we are pushing for such collaboration with other stakeholders.

“We have reasons for us to collaborate with all these traditional partners. There are new partners that are very important to us. Take, for example, NIWA; we need them for building modern jetties,” he said.

Mr Adeniyi said the theme of the 2024 International Customs Day was actually picked for the NCS because “they see collaboration as an effective way of improving their mandate.”

“We like to ensure that we sustain this momentum of collaboration,” he said.

On the request for a one-stop-shop for export being proposed by the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Mr Adeniyi said the NCS would continue to support initiatives that would boost economic growth and development.

“ We have designated a particular port, the Lilypond for this, so we will actively engage with NEPC to see how we can remove existing complaints and bridges that have been associated with what we are doing now, we can always do better,” he said.

(NAN)