The Federal Government says it will introduce a single window for data across various sectors and agencies to curb revenue leakages in the country.
The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, announced the plan on Thursday in Abuja, while making presentation at the 2017 International Customs Day celebration.
The theme of the celebration was: “Data analysis for effective border management.”
The minister, who was represented by the Director of Technical Services in the ministry, Hajia Lare Shahebu, stressed the importance of data for effective border management.
Adeosun said: “The effective use of data in the daily operations of the Nigeria Customs Service will help facilitate trade with other partner countries and boost the GDP of Nigeria.
“Data sharing among other agencies are necessary and important to curb revenue leakages, especially in the administration of some fiscal incentive.
“Efforts are now in full swing to introduce a single window for data across the various sectors and agencies.
“This is an important milestone for the country, it has been an uphill task to get agencies to collaborate and to focus on a singular and harmonise set of data; I believe this will make a lot of difference.”
Adeosun said that effective use of data analysis would help to curb smuggling in the country.
She said: “It is not just important to have the data but how it is being analysed and what we get out of data is crucial.
“Clearly, we cannot have proper planning in budgeting and even in addressing issues of Nigeria populace without proper analysis of data.
“We believe the outcome of this event will be used to further improve on our data analysis and management in the country.”
Kunio Mikuriya, the Secretary General, World Customs Organisation, said that collecting and analysing data to enhance the effectiveness of border management was of paramount importance to customs administration.
Mikuriya was represented by Comptroller International, Ibrahim Maikarfi.
Mikuriya said that the development in ICT and its wider use had made the collection of data and access to open data easier.
He added that the real challenge was about making sense of a vast amount of information through proper processing and analysis.
Mikuriya said: “This will help customs officers to drive priority setting, decision making, performance measurement, integrity and compliance strategy, budget planning and forecasting and operations.”
