There are strong indications that importers of cargoes into Nigerian ports through popular shipping company, CMA CGM may be due for hard times as maritime trucks drivers have said that they will continue to run away from picking any consignment that comes into the country through the shipping line.
According to some of the drivers who spoke with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos, the decision to avoid any container from the shipping line is borne out of the unusual delays and bottlenecks that are associated with the picking and dropping of the containers at the ports.
There are strong indications that importers of cargoes into Nigerian ports through popular shipping company, CMA CGM may be due for hard times as maritime trucks drivers have said that they will continue to run away from picking any consignment that comes into the country through the shipping line.
According to some of the drivers who spoke with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos, the decision to avoid any container from the shipping line is borne out of the unusual delays and bottlenecks that are associated with the picking and dropping of the containers at the ports.
Another major factor according to them is the failure of the company to provide a holding bay where truckers can easily take empty containers to, instead of coming to queue up on the port access road and in the process incurring the wrath of the laws.
One of the truck drivers, Mr. Razak Hamza told our correspondent that, for a trucker to pick up a container from any other shipping line, he collects N60, 000 because he knows he will return the container on time and yet have ample time to do other businesses, but lamented that for same trucker to pick a CMA CGM container, he will collect N160, 000 because of the delays involved.
According to him, it is because of the inability of the shipping companies to provide holding bays for empty containers that made trucks to line up at the port on daily basis. “This has led to port authority officials insisting on collecting N10,000 on every truck that parks along the port entrance, all the other terminals except PTML, collect bribe before allowing trucks to drop empty containers”, he alleged.
Razak stressed that the practice is most common at the Tin Can Island Port and that “this has made gaining access into Five star terminal, TICT, and Ports and Cargo to be a major problem”.
While confirming this development to our correspondent, the Public Relations Officer of the Tin Can Island Command of the Nigeria Custom Service, Mr. Chris Osunkwo said that the situation is applicable to almost all the shipping companies and that many of them do not have holding bays for dropping of empty containers and that this is the major cause of the gridlocks at the port.
Also corroborating this, the PTML Chapter Chairman of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Mr. Ugochukwu Nnadi said that it takes not less than a week for a truck driver to return an empty container belonging to CMA CGM successfully.
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