24 HOUR OPERATIONS: NPA Woos Banks

In a bid to accomplish government’s 24 -hour cargo clearance target from the nation’s seaports, a call has gone to the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi Lamido to put in place measures that will enable banks in the country to embark on a 24- hour operations at the ports.

In a bid to accomplish government’s 24 -hour cargo clearance target from the nation’s seaports, a call has gone to the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi Lamido to put in place measures that will enable banks in the country to embark on a 24- hour operations at the ports.
Speaking at the 5th Anniversary /Transport Development Symposium and Excellence Awards put together by Transquest Media Concept over the weekend in Lagos, the General Manager, Public Affairs of the Nigeria Port Authority [NPA], Chief Michael Ajayi stressed that for 24 – hour clearance of goods to be visible, the money market must also key into the port system.
Ajayi argued that, “one critical area that we need to look at is the banking sector and are the banks ready to key in or what are the banks doing to ensure 24 hours clearance of goods from the port, because when you make payment to the bank, the customs need to confirm the payment and such interface need to be established between the freight forwarders, the customs, and other concessionaires who are the terminal operators’’.
‘’I will appeal to the Central Bank of Nigeria to help drive this, so that the banks will not close around 7p.m and go home, rather they should have an arrangement to work over night’’, he stated.
According to him, technology has made a lot of progress in port operation thus the banks should be in tune to make 24 – hour clearing of goods achievable.
The image maker of the agency noted that importers divert their cargoes to neighbouring ports due to the fact that they are not ready to make genuine declaration of their consignment in Nigeria ports.
He said that even with the phantom diversion of cargoes into other West African ports, cargo throughput is on the increase.
He argued that cargo diversion by importers happens as a result of those who want to beat Customs by not paying the right duty to the customs.
The spokesperson revealed that more than 82 million metric tonnes of cargo throughput has been recorded so far in 2012, even as he acknowledged that the ports have been over stressed, a development that has created vacuum for deep sea ports in the country.