The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, on Wednesday said it is adopting a shift work schedule to integrate a 24 hour work mode by its officials in and around the port.
The development is premised on acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo’s Executive Orders which is meant to ease the operation of various businesses in Nigeria.
TheNewsGuru.com reports that the acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, had on Thursday, May 18 signed three far-reaching executive orders expected to ease business, fast-track budget submission and promote made in Nigeria products.
Disclosing this to newsmen at a meeting with other stakeholders in Lagos, Comptroller-General of the Customs Service, Col Hammed Ali (Rtd) said that the Customs Service had to adopt a shift system with a view to meeting the deadline for the implementation of the of the Executive order.
Ali also said that the only way to meet up with Executive order was to adopt a shift process of work schedule adding that officer have been intimated and are ready to comply accordingly.
“There is no way we can stretch one person for 24 hours, so we have to adopt the process of shift and that is the only way we can cover the Executive order on 24 hours port operation effectively” he added.
Similarly, the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, (NPA), Ms Hadiza Bala Usman, has also said that respective Heads of agencies operating in the ports had equally issued directives to their staff to comply with the order.
She explained that yesterday’s meeting was to evaluate the implementation of the order by the various agencies in the port.
The NPA boss disclosed that part of the resolution from the meeting was the sustenance of the implementation of the Executive order.
She said “We are here today to have an interaction around the Executive order on port operation that was issued by the Acting President, and following weeks of implementation, we felt the need for all of us (Heads of agencies) to come together to determine how far our operatives have gone in implementing the Executive orders and also to harmonize our position and have one single implementation stream in implementing the order.
“We have very fruitful deliberations, we are going to sustain this deliberations as we go into the deadlines for the respective Executive orders.
“We have the orders as stipulated we have identified them and every agency have committed towards deploying all human infrastructure required to achieve them”.
She also disclosed that only the NPA, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, (NIMASA), Port Health, Nigeria Immigration Service, (NIS), State Security Service, (SSS), Customs and Police are the only agencies allowed in the port.
TheNewsGuru.com recalls that the federal government recently barred officials of the Standard Organization of Nigeria, (SON) and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA) from the port.