The African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat has signed a 20-year, $3.1 billion concession agreement with Bergmans Security Consultants and Supplies Limited, a Nigerian company, to modernise customs administration across Africa.
The agreement was signed in Abuja this week, according to the AfCFTA Secretariat. Nigerian outlets including Vanguard and The Gazelle News reported the signing took place on Thursday, 6 August, while Reuters reported it occurred late Wednesday. Both accounts agree on the substance and value of the deal.
Bergmans will execute the agreement through its subsidiary, AfriTrade CMP Limited, under a public-private partnership structure. The company has committed to funding and deploying digital and physical customs infrastructure across AfCFTA member states.
AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene signed on behalf of the trade bloc, while Bergmans chairman Alhaji Saleh Ahmadu signed for the company. The ceremony took place at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja.
The deal formally launches the AfCFTA Customs Modernisation Project. Mene said manual customs systems across the continent contribute to corruption, revenue leakages, under-invoicing and over-invoicing, and that the project is designed to move African customs administrations toward digital, transparent and accountable systems.
The project will introduce Non-Intrusive Inspection technology, integrated data centres and multilingual customs portals supporting the continent’s official languages. Reuters reported the system would standardise cross-border procedures and provide real-time tracking of goods.
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Mene said the Secretariat selected Bergmans because it is an African company capable of deploying digital technology at continental scale, and that several non-African firms had approached the Secretariat with similar offers but were turned down in favour of an African company. He was introduced to Ahmadu by the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, according to Leadership newspaper.
Ahmadu said Nigeria’s own customs modernisation programme, which Bergmans previously worked on, achieved measurable success and has drawn international attention as a reference model. He described the new agreement as the outcome of years of work toward simplifying trade across the continent.
The agreement follows a memorandum of understanding the two parties signed in July on the sidelines of the Digital Trade Forum 2026 in Lagos, which first outlined the partnership.
AfCFTA groups 54 African countries under a single market and began trading in January 2021. It is the largest free trade area in the world by number of participating countries.
