Abuja – The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has emerged winner of the best e-governance project for 2015 for its Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR), a clearance tool it introduced in 2013.
A statement by Mr Wale Adeniyi, the NCS Public Relations Officer on Friday in Abuja, said the award was given at the e-Governance and long service Awards 2015.
The statement in Abuja said the event was organised by the National Information Technology Development Agency in collaboration with NIHILENT Technologies, an IT services and solution company.
It disclosed that the NCS also emerged first runner-up in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) category for the year.
The statement quoted the Customs Comptroller-General, retired Col. Hameed Ali as saying that “ the yearly award is the second in the series organised by NITDA.
“In 2014, the Nigeria Customs Service emerged winner in two categories – best Web Presence and best MDA of the year.
“We are delighted to have won this award and we want to assure Nigerians that we will continue to fine tune the PAAR system and improve on it to meet global standards’’.
The statement said the PAAR officially commenced in February 2009 and was launched in December 2013.
It said that the system had continued to be a robust and dynamic platform for facilitating pre-arrival processing in line with Nigeria’s import process and global best practices.
“The PAAR system, which has generated 426,636,000 risk assessment documents since it was launched, recorded tremendous success in enhancing the NCS revenue profile and improved Nigeria’s ease of doing business ranking.
[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
“The award is in recognition of the project’s overall capacity to address the needs of stakeholders, demonstrate efficiency, and benefit the masses over a long period of time,’’ the statement explained.
It said the platform had embedded risk and intervention mechanisms, fast-tracking traders’ compliance and building a single and integrated risk management engine.
The statement stressed that the PAAR entrenched a culture of transparency, professionalism and quality control into the system and further upheld e-customs agenda of eliminating human contact. (NAN)
