The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat has awarded a 20-year concession worth an estimated $3.1 billion to Nigerian technology company Bergmans Security Consultants and Supplies Limited to modernize customs systems across Africa.
According to reports, the project seeks to modernise customs administration across Africa, helping to facilitate intra-African trade, streamline border procedures and improve revenue collection.
Creating a Single Digital Customs Environment
The AfCFTA Customs Modernisation Project (ACMP)is designed to operationalize AfCFTA protocols on customs harmonization and trade facilitation; alongside this the system will assist customs administrations to improve efficiency, safeguard revenues and support intra-African trade without creating additional financial burdens.
AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene said the initiative would help create a continental, modern, interoperable customs system that enables businesses to benefit more fully from the expanded African market.
Supporting Trade Facilitation and Revenue Collection
In general terms, the customs platform is intended to reduce clearance times, lower the cost of cross-border trade and strengthen revenue collection by improving transparency and reducing administrative bottlenecks. According to Bergmans, the project will deploy continent-wide digital and physical customs infrastructure, including advanced non-intrusive inspection technology, integrated data centres and multilingual customs portals supporting Africa’s official languages.
Nigeria’s Customs Comptroller-General Adewale Adeniyi said, “What this would help us to achieve is that it would help our systems to be able to speak to themselves, so that when you make declarations in Ghana, or anywhere, it should not be difficult for the Nigerian customs system to process it. This is actually a landmark and historic agreement.”
Leveraging Nigerian Systems
Chairman of Bergmans Security Consultants and Supplies Limited, Saleh Ahmadu, said the project would leverage the technology currently used in Nigeria to develop a system that can be adopted across Africa. “The goal is to build an African platform for Africa based on the model we have here in Nigeria, which will be interoperable with all the African countries,” Ahmadu said.
He said the project would initially be rolled out in six African countries before expanding across the continent, creating a unified digital customs ecosystem.
Strengthening AfCFTA Implementation
The customs modernization project represents a significant step towards to AfCFTA’s goal to support and expand intra-African trade. By creating interoperable customs systems and harmonizing border procedures, the project is intended to reduce trade friction, improve customs efficiency and strengthen regional economic integration. Officials say modernizing customs administration will be a critical step towards delivering the practical benefits of Africa’s single market and supporting increased intra-African trade.
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