By Christiana Ekpa
The House of Representatives Committee on Shipping Services, has queried the Nigeria Shippers Council for failing to commence implementation of the International Cargo Tracking Note (ICTN).
Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Abdussamad Dasuki, during a budget performance and defence session with management of the Council, said the delayed implementation of the ICTN is costing Nigeria huge losses in revenue.
He said it was expected, with the legislative backing, for the ICTN “to take effect almost immediately, and here we are at the tail end of the first quarter of the year, we are yet to contribute anything. Why haven’t we started implementing the ICTN. What are we waiting for? Why we allowing Nigeria to lose so much revenue, and not doing anything?”
Executive Secretary of the Council, Mr. Pius Akutah however assured the committee that plans for the takeoff have been concluded, saying that “the benefits are so much. I remember our commitment to implementing the ICTN in the first quarter of 2024, even today, we had a meeting at the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy to discuss extensively on the way forward for the implementation of the ICTN
“It is important that we commence implementation of the ICTN not only because it is an economy my facilitation tool, but it is also a revenue generation platform for this country, it’s one good that will be coming to Nigeria through ICTN, and beside that, it will also tackle some of the security challenges that we face as a country today, because we will know from the onset, what King of cargoes are coming to the country, and then, it will also ease business and then reduce the time spent, and bring about multi-efficiency.
“These are all what the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy is projecting for the year 2024, but like I said, we have no reason whatsoever not to commence, just because of some technical issues that we are dealing with in-house. Very soon, we will be off and running with the ICTN and mostly for now, where this government have decided to implement the Oronsaye panel’s report, it is important for Nigeria Shippers Council to implement the ICTN as a revenue generation means so that we can be able to fund our budget because that’s the recommendation of that panel regarding the Nigeria Shippers Council.
Akutah had earlier briefed the committee on the 2024 budget proposal of the Council, and its 2023 budget performance.
According to him, the Council is proposing a total budget of N28.618 billion for the 2024 fiscal year, a figure he said represented about 161 percent increase from the over N10 billion naira of its 2023 budget, explaining further that the surplus for the year 2023 stood at N22.657 billion, pointing that “but for this year (2024), the surplus is projected N47,347,630,345.41.
“We projected a revenue of N104,875,322,396.62 for 2024 fiscal year in comparison with a budget of N44,597,508,757.85 for 2023 which represent the increase of 135 percent. As I said earlier, this increase in revenue projection is based on approval for the implementation of the International Cargo Tracking Note”
