The Shippers Association Lagos State (SALS) has said that port congestion is imminent at the Apapa Port and the Tin Can Island Port due to the bad state of the road leading into the two ports, as well as the directive by government that all cargoes should be palletised.
Speaking with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week, Vice President of SALS; Rev Nichodemus Odollo noted that more containers are coming into the ports but there is no required space and equipment from terminal operators to handle them.
Odollo said that the cost of doing business in Nigeria is too high and that presently, shippers are operating below 40 percent. He said that majority of Nigerian shippers have gone to neighbouring countries including Benin republic, Ghana and other countries in west Africa.
"If you go to Ghana today, you would find Nigerians behind these businesses that are thriving there; this is because we are not given the right atmosphere in Nigeria to operate"
"Of recent there is a policy that every cargo must be palletized, it would increase the number of containers coming into the country and double the shipping charges, terminal charges, clearing and trucking of the containers"
"It cannot work for us as a shipper, increasing the number of boxes that are coming is going to cause another congestion at the port, and when there is congestion there is going to be demurrage and storage charges"
"Look at the access roads leading to the ports, if you have 200 containers to deliver in a day and only ten comes out and along the line a container fell on the road, the other ones are blocked inside, there will be congestion and they would ask the shipper to come and pay. Infrastructure and electricity for twenty four hours has to be in place" he said.
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