The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has warned port concessionaire; Tin Can Island Container Terminal (TICT) to ensure that it complies with random sampling of cargoes at its terminal or risk the wrath of freight forwarders.
Speaking with Shipping Position Daily at the Tin Can Island Port last week, Chairperson of the LCCI Freight Forwarding Trade Group, Mrs Julie Ogboru said that TICT is currently having problems in positioning of containers for Customs examination.
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has warned port concessionaire; Tin Can Island Container Terminal (TICT) to ensure that it complies with random sampling of cargoes at its terminal or risk the wrath of freight forwarders.
Speaking with Shipping Position Daily at the Tin Can Island Port last week, Chairperson of the LCCI Freight Forwarding Trade Group, Mrs Julie Ogboru said that TICT is currently having problems in positioning of containers for Customs examination.
According to her, the terminal is currently handicapped in cargo handling equipment and it takes approximately four days after the freight forwarder have booked for positioning of containers before the terminal can position a single container for examination.
She warned that if the trend continues, clearing agents and freight forwarders will have no option but to riot and close down the ports.
Mrs. Ogboru told our correspondent that the TICT has equally circulated a message at the port last week that it was going to start positioning of all containers on a bill of laden. She said the terminal claims that this was the directive of the Tin Can Island Customs Command.
Ogboru said "at TICT, we have problems because of positioning of containers. They are complaining that the CAC directed that if they have 100 containers they should position the 100 containers, the reason given by the CAC was for them to be security conscious,
"but even if they want to be security conscious, the CEMA calls for random sampling, the customs should randomly pick 50 out of the 100 containers and position them"
"TICT have been having a lot of problems, it takes them four days to position a container and this is not good for the system, if they continue like this, we are going to riot, we will go on strike and it will affect the port" she warned.
The LCCI Chieftain advised that the Terminal should in collaboration with the Customs service must ensure that they carry out random sampling of containers in compliance with the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA)
According to her, if the customs can do random picking of fifty containers out of one hundred and they examine them, they would be able to detect any container carrying dangerous cargoes.
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