Nigeria ranked low in Customs service efficiency

Nigeria has been ranked among the 15 lowest performing countries in the world as regards the efficiency of its customs service and border management processes.

The ranking is contained in a World Bank Connecting to Compete Report 2018 on trade logistics in the global economy, which evaluated the logistic performance of 160 countries, using data gathered through a worldwide survey of logistics professionals on how easy or difficult they experienced trade logistics along six generic dimensions.

The dimensions include customs efficiency and border management clearance, quality of trade and transport-related infrastructure; ease of arranging competitively priced international shipments; competence and quality of logistics services; ability to track and trace consignments; and the frequency with which shipments reach consignees within the scheduled time.

Across all the indicators, Nigeria took the 110th place out of the 160 countries, one of the bottom 50 performers in the world.

The report stated that Nigeria has a level of logistics constraints typical of low- and middle-income countries.

In terms of customs efficiency, Nigeria emerged 147th, logistics infrastructure, 78th; international shipments, 110th; logistics competence, 112th; tracking and tracing, 92nd; and timeliness, 92nd position.

For the West African sub region, Cote D Ivoire clinched the top position as the best performing country in trade logistics with a global ranking of 50. Benin Republic is next at the 76th position; Ghana, 106th; Nigeria, 110th; Togo, 118th; Gambia, 127th; Liberia, 143; and Sierra Leone, 156th.

The report said, “The six LPI indicators are divided into two main categories: areas for policy regulation which indicates main inputs to the supply chain, which includes customs, infrastructure, and services; as well as supply chain performance outcomes, which corresponds to LPI indicators of time, cost, and reliability — timeliness, international shipments, and tracking and tracing.

“Because operators on the ground can best assess the vital aspects of logistics performance, the LPI relies on an online survey of logistics professionals from the companies responsible for moving goods around the world: multinational freight forwarders and the main express carriers.

“Freight forwarders and express carriers are best positioned to assess how countries perform. Their views matter because they directly affect the choice of shipping routes and gateways, thereby influencing the decisions of firms to locate production, choose suppliers, and select target markets.”

The report listed the bottom 10 countries in the world to include Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Niger, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Libya, Haiti, Zimbabwe and Central African Republic.

“These are either fragile economies affected by armed conflict, natural disasters, and political unrest or landlocked countries naturally challenged by geography or economies of scale in connecting to global supply chains,” it said.