Poor ports operations holding Nigeria down, Reps tell Customs, NPA, others

…NPA, Customs blame poor infrastructure The House of Representatives has blamed the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), terminal operators and other stakeholders on the stagnation of operations of Nigerian ports. Chairman, House Committee on Customs, Leke Abejide (APC, Kogi) and other members of the committee made the observations […]

• …NPA, Customs blame poor infrastructure

The House of Representatives has blamed the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), terminal operators and other stakeholders on the stagnation of operations of Nigerian ports.

Chairman, House Committee on Customs, Leke Abejide (APC, Kogi) and other members of the committee made the observations on Tuesday at an interactive session with the agencies to discuss ways a of addressing challenges regarding operation of the Ports.

Abejide said poor ports operations have been the bane of Nigeria’s economic growth in the last six years.

He said the essence of the meeting was to see how government agencies and other stakeholders would work towards making Nigerian ports competitive to correct wrong procedures responsible for the avoidable congestions, which have become an economic headache and stalling development.

“Bonded containers that are supposed to be dropped at seaside by the shipping lines are not being allocated to another Bonded Terminals together with other containers for the said Bonded Terminals to take the whole vessel loads to its Terminal first on the cost of the importers before the Bonded Terminal which is the final destination pick the container to their Terminal.

“Apart from the cost which is abnormal and triple, there is time consumption, which leads to delays, making nonsense of the FGN policy of Ease of Doing Business,” he said.

He expressed worry over the excesses of the shipping lines in trying to kill the export business by leaving export containers $17,000.

According to him, the Shippers knew that, an import is a leakage to the economy while export is an injection into the economy.

“There are cases of one year, six months, four months, etc. that empty containers were returned yet no refund. The excuses the shipping companies usually give is they are processing, but when they want to collect, they don’t process that long.

“| think there should be a Law stipulating penalty for default on the part of those erring shipping lines like paying 150% of the amount deposited if deposit is not refunded within three days their empty container is returned to them,” he said.

Abejide also challenges NPA to explain why Terminal Operators are allowed to give fewer free days, like five days, for Export to Gate-in, knowing fully well that in advanced countries there are in some cases 21 free days.

The Committee chairman also noted that, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) cannot trust their well organised Commands that have Area Controllers, Deputy Controllers Admin, Deputy Controller of Revenue, Deputy Controller of Enforcement, many Assistant Controllers with containers going to Bonded Terminals unless cumbersome clearing procedures are done.

“In actual fact, the same clearing procedures will be done at Final Destination with full Customs organs present and other Agencies such as SS, Police Anti-bomb, SON, NAFDAC, etc,” he added.

However, in their various submissions, the stakeholders blamed poor infrastructure, bad policies, corruption and other issues as obstacles to their operations.

Speaking, the Acting Managing Director (MD), Nigerian Ports Authority, Mohammed Bello Koko, informed the committee that more needs to be done as regards to decongestion of ports and streaming operations between the various stakeholders.

“In recent time they have been given a dashboard that will even enable to know when trucks are coming in.

“But there are multiple problems which we have addressed, some of them are outside the Nigerian Ports Authority, outside the purvey of NPA. The first issue is the problem of extortion. They are multiple check points within what we call the red zone.

“Currently there are over 5000 containers across the ports. Some of these containers are actually more than a year old and when you leave these containers there you’re also occupying space for containers imported,” he said.

Koko informed the committee that the issue of extortion is also taking its toll on ports operations even as there are multiple checkpoints in the ports, where people are extorted.

“And these checkpoints are manned by police officers. At times you find men in naval or military uniform, extorting vehicles illegally and Lagos State Government has been very cooperative in terms of enforcement of the SOP as it relate to the truck call up system.

He further informed the committee that the people that are supposed to adopt automated terminal delivery to ensure that any truck without a ticket can be impounded are the ones allegedly involved in the extortion.

“The people that are supposed to impound are the ones extorting. At times in a day, you can count up to 15 to 30 checkpoints and it’s really affecting the flow of traffic. Now it has graduated to area boys being the 5th man or whatever they call it,” he said.

However, Koko said eastern ports are not functioning very well as a result of some factors including insecurity, structural limitations and other reasons.

“All the ports are working. But the Eastern ports have geographical limitations. They have the longest channels that exist in Nigeria because they are near the ocean. So, because of that location and the insecurity in that area, it makes it difficult for shipping companies to use those ports.

“We have also given concessions to shipping companies and we are hoping that it will encourage more activities on those ports. We are encouraging the use of flat vessels in those areas.

“But the NPA cannot determine for importer where to take his cargo. Studies have shown that between 60 to 70 percent of cargoes imported is used in the southern part of the country,” he said.

He clarified that the Rivers Port has reached its life span and has its limitations, including that the engineering design for the port is old.

“It is Mongo Park kind of design and does not allow us to dredge deeper. The only solution is to reconstruct it or build a new one. The solution is what we are working on right now,” he said.

It also came to the fore that the Federal Ministry of Transportation and the NPA are working to complete the Lekki Deep Sea Port.

“The target is for it to start operation by the second quarter of next year. So all the ship businesses we have been losing to neighbouring countries will not be coming into the country. We also have plans to build Badagry Deep Sea Port and another one in Cross River,” he said.

The Acting NPA’s MD said delays in the movement of cargoes are caused by many reasons, which include wrong documentation by the importers, bringing in illegal or banned items combined with items that are allowed by government.