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By: Podo Sunday
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is set to establish a technical working group to implement the Memorandum of Understanding between the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and World Health Organization (WHO) on clearance of medical goods and equipment.
The Comptroller General of Customs (CGC), Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR, made this known at a roundtable on healthcare sector on Friday, June 14, 2024, at the Customs Training College, Ikeja, Lagos.
The CGC acknowledged the importance of the healthcare sector in Nigeria, especially its role in ensuring national security.
He said, "we are here at the instance of the Healthcare Federation of Nigeria (HFN) to discuss mutual concerns, issues that have bothered the HFN regarding the problems that they encounter in the clearance of medical equipment, particularly life-saving equipment."
"One of the things we have said is that we need to implement the WCO and WHO's Memorandum of Understanding on clearance of medical goods, which will involve creating special corridors for those goods; we are not strangers to that. We already have schemes targeted at such sectors," the CGC explained.
CGC Adeniyi highlighted some of the agreements reached at the meeting, saying, "We will take the first step towards establishing the technical working group, and virtually all the members of the proposed working group are here, so they are already aware."
"Some of these are things that we can deliver almost immediately if we are talking about processes and procedures, yes, we can deliver those almost immediately, but if we are talking about changing codes and classification, it requires a wider level of consultations, a more robust engagement with the Ministry of Finance and other agencies that are involved," he emphasised.
The CGC explained that the technical working group will comprise Customs, HFN, and other critical stakeholders like the Ministry of Finance, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Standards Organisation of Nigeria, office of the National Security Adviser, and other stakeholders.
He reiterated President Bola Tinubu's vision and passion for ensuring the delivery of a sound healthcare system to Nigerians, "We have a listening ear in government, and we will articulate this position, and hopefully by the next quarter, we could be having some of these delivered."
The President of HFN, Dr. Pamela Ajayi, expressed satisfaction at the outcome of the meeting. She appreciated the service for its quick response to issues affecting the healthcare sector.
"It shows that Customs has a listening ear, the willingness to cooperate, to collaborate, to listen to the pains that we have as a healthcare sector," she said, and the engagement of CGC in terms of quickly setting up this technical working group to work with us, to provide the solution that we need, We are indeed happy. We are grateful to the Customs Service for this," she concluded.