The Nigerian Customs Service and the Republic of Benin Customs have initiated the Customs Declaration Exchange System (CDES) to facilitate cross-border trade between the two countries.

The Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC), Adewale Adeniyi, said the objective of the technology-enabled system was to ensure the interconnectivity of their operations, coordinated enforcement, harmonised procedures, and accountable joint governance.

Mr Adeniyi said this at the Joint Nigeria-Benin Customs meeting on the One Stop Border Post Assessment, held at the Seme-Krake border, Lagos State, on Friday.

The meeting has as its theme: “Leveraging the Nigeria Customs Service Trade Modernisation Project to Advance Seamless Cross-Border Trade and Shared Responsibility.”

The CGC said that once this was achieved, the two services would have built a template for every online crossing within the Economic Community of West African States and the African continent.

“This system will help to ease movement across the two borders for traders, especially women, who make up more than 70 per cent of those who engage in informal cross-border trade.

“On this corridor, the pattern is even more pronounced because some 22 per cent of Benin’s informal exports are destined for Nigeria.

“Informal trade is estimated to account for a fifth of economic activity in Nigeria and an even higher share in Benin Republic,” the CGC said.

Mr Adeniyi said that women traders across the West African border typically support more than three children and a similar number of other dependants through trade alone.

“Women on this corridor are alleged to have faced harassment, extortion, and delays as ordinary features of crossing a border that is slow, opaque, intimidating, and complex.

“However, it gives me particular satisfaction that the Nigerian Customs Service, alongside Benin Customs, is launching a dedicated facility to cater to the special needs of women traders on this corridor,” he said.

The CGC said the purpose of the CDES was to bring women into the formal trading system on terms they could actually meet and to simplify procedures for the movement of small consignments.

“The system will also help to clearly publish information in languages traders will understand and provide a channel through which any woman who is badly treated can make a complaint,” he said.

Mr Adeniyi said the true test of the system would be measured by whether a truck carrying goods from Cotonou to Lagos cleared the border once instead of twice.

“It will be measured by whether a man or woman with a load of goods crosses the border in an hour, rather than spending the whole day crossing it.

“It will also be measured by whether an officer on this side sees what an officer on the other side is looking at, and it will help facilitate decision-making,” he said.

Mr Adeniyi said the technical team had presented a series of processes that would help deploy the CDES in Benin and Nigeria for interconnectivity and trade facilitation.

“So, we are looking at the possibility of co-locating the customs administrations and systems in one place within the border.

“Once this is done, within the next three months, all the systems will have started working. However, the most important ingredient we need is connectivity between the systems.

“Once we achieve connectivity, and then the willingness of the two customs administrations, in a matter of months, we will start the system running,” the CGC said.

The Director-General of Customs, Benin Republic, Colonel Raouf Aboudou, assured of Benin Republic’s readiness to ensure that the CDES works without hitches and improves trade between the two countries.

“Readiness is not a policy. Readiness is not a part of any development. Readiness is joint. So, we are expressing readiness for this joint venture to be a success.

“I am very optimistic that this system will work because it was built by us and for us,” Mr Aboudou said.

(NAN)