A frontline clearing agent; Mr. Achike Molokwu has urged the management of the Tin Can Island Container Terminal (TCIT) to go into bonded terminal operations as a means of reducing congestion at its terminal.
Molokwu who said this last week in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos however lauded the terminal operator for providing sufficient equipment for cargo handling.
He advised that the move will help the government policy on 48 hours cargo delivery.
“As I said, TCIT, Ports & Cargo to be honest with you are now good in their equipment, they have actually improved on their equipment. But you will agree with me that the volume of containers that are coming in needs time, especially at TCIT”
“They need to open another private terminal outside where most of these their containers now will be channelled to, something like bonded terminals. So the management of TCIT should look inward to see where they will get bonded terminals outside where they can be channelling their containers, so that importers and agents will not wait for days before they can take their delivery”, he advised.
Molokwu, reiterated that the volume of cargoes that comes into the terminals is bigger than the space available in the terminal, even as he decried that agents and importers are meant to pay demurrages because of that.
“In some cases, when you book for examination today for your container to be dropped for examination it takes, two to three days in TCIT, because the volume is too much for them to handle and these are demurrages that are going and they will not minus anything from you”, he concluded.
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