Stakeholders Say Concessionaires Sabotaging Govt Efforts At Ports

Stakeholders in the Nigerian maritime industry have warned terminal operators and shipping companies not to deliberately frustrate efforts of the government at ensuring trade facilitation and making Nigerian ports to be competitive in the West African sub region.

The stakeholders who spoke with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos observed that since the terminal operators took over port operations in 2006, terminal operators have not done enough to support the government on timely release of cargoes and road maintenance.

Speaking with reporters on the recent evacuation of more than 248 containers of power equipment from the nation's ports, a maritime expert and consultant to the Federal Ministry of Power; Emmanuel Nweke said that it is a shame that such vital cargoes had been abandoned at the terminals, even as he said that concessionaires also contributed to the delays.

Even though he acknowledged that the delay may have come from any quarters during last government's administration, he however alluded that the containers could have been delayed due to bad documentation by shipping companies.

Nweke observed that there are still other government containers lying at the ports, even as he appealed to the concessionaires to give them to government for the benefit of Nigerians.

"The shipping companies and terminal operators should give their little civic responsibility to support the government"

"We have thousands and millions of containers coming into Nigeria through these terminals, the government has given it to them to run for the next 35 years, they must put their hands together to assist the government on problems that looks insurmountable"

"It is so appalling that over 11 years, the equipment that will actually aid the country to experience government promise of steady power supply has been kept at our port".

While lamenting the economic implication of the delayed equipment whose evacuation process was kick-started by the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo at the Apapa port recently, Nweke added that, "making it impossible for cargoes to get to where they are going looks to me like a sabotage, it will also affect the terminal and shipping companies because we all need power".

The maritime expert however expressed respect to the management of the Nigeria Customs Service for its understanding and corporation in moving out the 248 containers.

"Today, the Nigeria customs has made importation so easy, it has simplified importation of any type of cargo, be it government or private, this will cut off all the problems that we had in the past administrations"

"From single window, everything as regards the document and the license you need has been made clear" he observed

Also speaking with Shipping Position Daily, an importer, Kehinde Odumuyiwa lambasted terminal operators for the poor state of the port access roads.

He admonished the concessionaires, saying that they should not depend on government alone to do everything for them. Even though he agreed that repairing the roads may not be in their concession agreement, he said that port concessionaires make billions of money from the port on daily basis.

Odumuyiwa said that terminal operators should support government's efforts by putting palliative measures on the roads.

He said: "They feel so less concerned after they have collected their charges at the port, a small portion of the roads might be going bad and instead of them to apply a little effort at patching it, they will wait for the government"

"The Government and Terminal operators have collected their own money, and they leave the importer to battle with his container falling off the trucks after he must have obtained loans from the bank".