Freight Forwarders, Importers Accuse SON Over Claims On Application Portal

By Roland Ekama, Lagos

Importers and freight agents have insisted the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) portal application collapsed for over a month ,even as they accused the agency of misleading the trading public with false information.

This is coming barely 48 hours, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON)  debunked claims by some freight agents over a purported collapse of its online application portal for the operation of  Conformity Assessment Program (SONCAP) for processing of SON regulated imports into Nigeria .

A statement from the office of the Director General, Osita Aboloma stressed that rather, it is those importers who fail to comply with the pre-shipment process who are crying wolf on accumulation of demmurage on their consignments.

According to the statement signed by the Head, Public Relations, SON Bola Fashina the portal was recently upgraded .

But maritime operators who reacted  frowned at the claims ,saying it is a ploy to cover up its shortcomings and competence .

According to the stakeholders who spoke  with our correspondent in Lagos, Thursday, the SON portal had collapsed since November, 2019, admitting  that it was just fixed in February, 2020.

Though SON agreed that it experienced a server breakdown, no detail was given as to how long it lasted.

It was gathered that the agency upgraded its portal without consulting the Nigeria Customs Service which in turn created technical hitches for freight agents to access it portal 

Speaking on the development, Prince Bakare Adeyinka, the President General of the Nigeria Associationof Air Freight Forwarders and Consolidators (NAFFAC) in a chat with our correspondent lamented that the system collapse has already led demurrage at the ports.

Adeyinka maintained that the ugly development has affected the businesses of both importers and exporters in the international trade chain .

According to him, billions of naira has been lost to the system collapse since it began stating that no agency of government has risen to the occasion.

He expressed fear that the demurrage accrued from the breakdown will lead to increase in the price of goods in the market as importers will pass the extra charges to the final consumers.

His words, “The SON network downturn has been an issue for more than 3 weeks now and has affected a whole lot of importers and exporters in the port.

“Billions of naira are lost on this on a daily basis. Nobody is checking or addressing it.

“That’s one of the greatest problems here. The shippers’ pay heavily and at the end it goes to the market and average person on the streets.”

Similarly, another freight agent who simply identified himself as Mr. Ibrahim Samuel confirmed that the issuance of SONCAP was a major problem in January but added that “Since on Monday it appears the system has been stable but for over a month running it was difficult to access the Pre Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) because of the problem of SONCAP .

“All through January this year we find it very difficult to process PAAR because of the SONCAP application portal which made things difficult for us but the situation is back to normalcy at the moment.

He also frowned at  the SON for claiming that there was no hitches except upgrading of the portal, noting that a simple apology to the trading public would have weather the storm.

On his part, Sadiq Aderibigbe told our correspondent that SON lied and that the stakeholders would continue to point accusing fingers at it for the irregularities.

“It is wrong for SON to say that there serve has no technical issues when hundreds of agents find it difficult to work. Imagine a situation whereby the server will be up today and few hours later it’s off”,he fumed.