The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) on Wednesday lamented the various infractions, interference in cargo clearance at the nation’s ports.
Mr Emmanuel Jime, Executive Secretary, NSC, made the call at a 2-day training for maritime Police in Lagos.
The training with the theme, “Understanding the Role and Impact of the Police in the Maritime Industry,” was organised by council in collaboration with the Nigerian Police Force (NPF).
Jime was represented by Mrs Celine Ifeora, Deputy Director, Monitoring and Enforcement, NSC.
According to Jime, the interferences often disrupt cargo dwell time, increase demurrage/storage charges for the consignees, extortion, which ultimately lead to increase in prices of goods and services in the country.
“NSC collaborates with several agencies, including the maritime police to enforce compliance with the established standards, eliminate corruption and bring down costs of doing business in our ports.
“The intervention by the council led to receipt of several reports from the users of port services (consignees, freight forwarders, haulers) about the incessant interference in the cargo clearance processes.
“The council had on several occasions carried out investigations on the matter to ascertain the truthfulness or otherwise of the claims, and confirmed that these practices were carried out by various groups,” he said.
Jime noted that the findings resulted to collaboration between the council and the then Inspector General of Police who directed the Assistant Inspector General, Maritime Police Command, to streamline the plethora of complaints received.
He said consequently, the AIG took some initiatives to curb the situation, and the latest being the appointment of some officers.
He said the appointed officers would be responsible for ensuring that due process was followed whenever there was need for request for re-inspection of cargoes based on intelligence report.
“With this in place, the NSC and Maritime Police Command recorded quite a lot of achievements.
“But we cannot rest on past achievements because some of these infractions still occur either deliberately or due to ignorance on the part of the officers involved,” he said.
Jime noted that one of the fruits of the meeting between him and AIG, Maritime Police command, was the decision to build the capacity of officers to enlighten and educate them on port operations vis-a-vis the role of the police.
He said part of the role of the marine police was to ensure enforcement of standards, ensure extortion was stopped, less blocking of containers to enable smooth and seamless cargo dwell time.
He said the Nigerian seaports had an unenviable reputation of being one of the ports with the longest cargo dwell time in the world.
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“While it takes only six hours to clear cargo in Singapore and about seven days in Lome, it takes an average of 21 days to do so in Nigeria.
“Long dwell time of cargo renders the ports inefficient, create congestions, increase the cost of doing shipping business and ultimately leads to high price of goods and services in the economy,” he said.
Also, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Sunny Dagana urged the police officers not to keep what they had learnt but take it back to those that were not opportuned to come for the training.
In a paper presentation, Mr Olalekan Faniyi, Superintendent of Police, urged officers to understand that they played a vital role in securing the port.
“Maintaining law and order, checking against arms and ammunition smuggling into the country and others are part of their responsibilities,” he said.
He disclosed that maritime police had the same mandate like the other police forces but that they operated on the waterways.
Faniyi discussed the topic, “Maritime Policing in the Port: Safeguarding and Keeping the Peace – A Perfect Formula for Nation Security.”
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