The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Committee (PEBEC) may soon prevail on the Nigeria Customs Service to resume auctioning of overtime cargoes littering Lagos ports; this is even as it has directed all truck drivers to evacuate the port access road within two weeks.
These were part of the resolutions reached by the committee at a closed door meeting with a large section of maritime practitioners in Lagos last week.
Cargoes are classified as overtime when they have stayed in the port for twenty-eight days without the importer or clearing agent coming up to clear them and take delivery.
Sources at the meeting confirmed to Shipping Position Daily that the Coordinator of PEBEC and Senior Special Assistant to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment, Ms Jumoke Oduwole chaired the meeting and vowed that President Muhammad Buhari would follow all the resolutions to the letter.
Another resolution of the committee was that the non-functional scanners at the Apapa and Tin Can Island Ports must be evacuated out of the port to give room for new scanners.
It was learnt that the committee also frowned at the fact that terminal operators have complained of how the old scanners were occupying a large space inside the terminals.
Speaking with our correspondent, a reliable source who was at the meeting stated that: "The PEBEC meeting was well-attended by maritime stakeholders, I think they wanted to find out the remote cause of the problems and proffer lasting solutions, after which they take the resolutions back to the president work on it"
"Inside the port is congested already with overtime cargoes, secondly the committee noted that scanners that are not working have occupied a lot of space, so they suggested that the overtime cargoes should be auctioned immediately at the port so that we can get clearance"
"Also, the old scanning machines inside the port would also be moved out of the port so that they can get functional scanners"
"Also physical examination of goods is leading to delay in cargo clearance from the port, the delay is usually up to five days, the PEBEC has resolved to resolve all these"
"Meeting was chaired by Coordinator of PEBEC and Senior Special Assistant to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment, Ms Jumoke Oduwole who made a speech, it was coordinated by one Mr. Jude Ogbo"
"They promised to deal with the challenges headlong"
Our correspondent gathered that there are not less than 10,000 abandoned overtime containers inside the Lagos port complex.
There has been a lingering contention between the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigeria Customs Service on the rightful agency to transfer the overtime cargoes.
Public Relations Officer of the Apapa Area Command of the NCS, Nkiru Nwala blamed the high cost of transportation as the reason why customs cannot transfer overtime cargoes from Apapa port to the government warehouse in Ikorodu.
According to Nwala, “it costs N550,000 to move a twenty-foot container from Apapa to Jibowu, a suburb of Lagos – a cost which the command cannot afford to bear”.
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