…Rejects moving cargoes to Ogun State truck park
Contrary to claims by all most all maritime agency of the government that they are providing ease of doing business at ports, the Shippers’ Association Lagos State (SALS) on Tuesday said the country lost N1 trillion annually through cargo diversion to ports in neighbouring countries due to bad roads to Lagos ports.
Besides, the association has rejected the idea of moving containers released at the ports to Papalanto in Ogun; a port decongesting strategy of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC).
The group argued that majority of the imports in Lagos is for Lagos factor or markets use, “The cost of moving such boxes (containers) to factories in Lagos and other places will be too high”.
“Cargo taken to Papalanto will be treated as up-country cargo and will attract high haulage fees,” SALS said.
According to the group, diversion of cargoes thrives because of poor ease of doing business at Nigerian ports.
The president of the group, Mr. Jonathan Nicol, who spoke with media executives in Lagos, said the losses arose from import duties and other charges not paid to Nigerian ports.
In his further submission, the shipper decried that there is massive diversion of Nigeria-bound cargo to ports in neighbouring countries due to bad access roads to Lagos ports.
Other factors driving the cargo diversion listed by SALS boss includes demurrage, terminal charges and storage fees incurred by shippers which ran into billions of naira daily.
Nicol noted that “There are also queue of vessels within the Lome waters awaiting call-up for berthing in Lagos ports”.
“This will attract port congestion levy on cargo, which is no fault of the shippers (importers and exporters).
“Demurrage on containers is increasing with no control from maritime agencies. Importers and exporters are suffering,’’ he said.
Nicol called on the contractor handling the rehabilitation of the access roads to Apapa port to expedite action to reduce problems encountered by shippers and truck owners.
He disclosed that “Industrialists are incurring huge expenses on haulage due to lack of access roads and they are counting more losses daily”.
“Currently there is no entry into Lagos ports and no access out of the ports after loading and truck drivers remained on queue for several days.
Nicol said that the export initiative of the Federal Government was also under threat as export goods spent several days before arriving at the ports.
However, to avert congestion, he suggested that the backlog of goods at the ports should be cleared, stressing that “The port congestion of the past is mounting again and may lead to prolonged litigation on who pays the charges”.
