UMAR DIKKO

Congestion looms at ports.

Except the government intervenes to address the acute space problems at the ports, efforts to reposition the institution as currently championed by the Minister of Finance, the Economic Committee and the Presidential Committee on Port Reforms may just be a mirage.
The forerunner to this foreboding is the current allegation by Nigerian importers and freight forwarders that they are undergoing monumental oppression in the hands of foreign shipping firms, which they contend create unwarranted bottlenecks to rip them off to the tune of hundreds of billions of Naira.
The importers and agents are crying that foreign shipping firms in Nigeria are exploiting them by charging excessive demurrage on cargoes, which they could not lift because of obvious restrictions indirectly placed by these companies but which the firms turn round to heap on them.
Part of the allegation is that shipping companies do not have enough s pace to drop cargoes so they block stack containers and this has chain reactions which eventually lead to excessive demurrage charges which the importers and agents claim have rendered them impoverished.
They also claim that shipping companies collect deposit from them for containers from which the firms are supposed to make a refund to importers but they argued that most often, the deposit is deceptively cornered by the shipping firms who they argue create unnecessary delays to ensure that the whole deposit go in as demurrage.
Even when there are refunds to make, they contend that the shipping firms fraudulently delay payment lasting up to four months by turning the clearing agents up and down.
The importers argued that they have complained about this issue for some time and therefore declared that if the government does not want to do something about it, they would take the laws into their hands and may even create strategic mayhem for something to be done.
The shipping firms on the other hand refuse to accept the allegations bandied about by importers and clearing agents.
They argue that the problem of space should not be linked to them since they are only using the space allotted to them as part of the concessioning arrangement.
Some of them also disclosed that they have invested in holding bays which accommodate most cargoes that cannot find space at the ports.
They noted that the importers are insincere and are just crying wolf where there is none.
But the importers and agents rejected the issue of holding bays which they insisted does not work.
They declared that even though the shipping firms have been mandated to get holding bays outside the port, they hardly do so for reasons which importers believe are calculated to rip them off.
While the two parties continue to trade blames, investigation shows that if the statusquo in terms of loading of containers and the offloading of empties is maintained, Lagos ports may experience acute congestion in the next few months and the multiplier effect may be too serious to assuage.
National Coordinator, Save Nigeria, Freight Forwarders Importers and Exporters Coalition, Chukwu Osita, said they are being ripped off and that it did not start today.
He said the fraud is carefully orchestrated by shipping firms to swindle freight forwarders and importers which unfortunately is snowballing into heavy congestion in few months to come.
From Daily Sun checks, anybody driving to Apapa from Mile 2 would notice that accessing Tincan Ports from Coconut Bustop is a difficult venture. Beginning from this place up to Tincan First Gate, takes nothing less than four hours to access due to endless line up of trucks waiting to enter the port terminal.
On a normal route, this should take less than three minutes. Although the roads are in terrible shape which is another kettle of fish, the real reason why the place is congested is because majority of these trucks are carrying empty containers waiting for days to discharge them with no available space inside the port.
A worst case scenario is experienced from Liverpool Bridge to Apapa port gate. While both Apapa and Tincan ports are almost congested.
While the shipping companies are required to have holding bays outside the port where they could divert some of these containers to create space, they hardly use them because of the trouble and the cost of getting trucks to bring the containers to the port when they need them.
So what they do is simply block stack containers and this is at the expense of importers who pay for the delays generated by this action.
The shipping companies and the terminal operators do not have the right equipments to bring out these containers and the importers suffer as a result of this ineptitude.
After cargo examination, the importer is expected to load his consignment in a container to the warehouse.
Further investigation show that entering the port to load the consignment could take another one week or two.
While the truck is waiting on queue, the demurrage continues to count. These days, it was discovered that in an anxious bid to enter the port to load their consignment and escape the accumulating daily demurrage, clearing agents now bribe their way at the gate.
When the truck manages to enter and load, coming out of the port is another huge task.
The result is that on a single consignment, the importer is taken on a merry go round of demurrage payment until he is completely sucked.
Amansi Ogbogbo, a clearing agent said that where the Shipping companies agree to pay the refund; it may take three months before you get it. “My anger is that these people are reaping freight forwarders off; they are using our money to trade and everybody is just keeping quiet; tomorrow when agents begin to make trouble they say we have come again.”He said that the current problem at the ports needs urgent attention or else something will give very soon.
From investigations, the agent acting for the importe is made to pay as much as N4million on demurrage alone before he takes a particular consignment.
This normally led to crisis of confidence between the agent and the importer who believes the agents is playing games by always coming back to ask for more money after the initial agreement on how much that would be needed to do the job.
The transporters on their part have risen up to take their pound of flesh. Since they do not know how long it would take them to enter the port to drop a particular container after offloading the consignment at the warehouse, they charge arbitrarily to make up for expected loss of time.
Position of importers\clearing agents and transporters Already feathers are getting ruffled as clearing agents are thinking of taking laws into their hands. Recently a group, the International Freight Forwarders Association (IFFA) asked the Federal government to intervene before they become lawless to show their anger.
One of the drivers said that some truck drivers desperate to enter the port had to grease the palm of some of the men at the gate, after which they are allowed to jump the queue and enter.
There have been moves by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) both directly and indirectly to ameliorate the situation. How far these moves have served the needed purpose is difficult to conjecture. The NCS in conjunction with other stakeholders before now had made frantic attempts to nip in the bud a resurgence of congestion at the container terminal in Apapa, Lagos, operated by APM Terminals.
The moves began when Apapa Area One Command noticed that spaces at the container terminal were getting filled up and would consequently make it difficult for new containers to be discharged if not quickly addressed.
The then Customs Area Controller, Apapa Area One Command, Idris Suleiman, said arrangement were in place with management of APMT to free up some spaces currently being occupied by overtime containers (containers that have spent more than the statutory period at the port without being cleared by the owners).
He said the agencies just delay containers on the flimsiest reasons whereas the law allows for containers to be released after examination by all the agencies. When there are issues not relating to the examination, there is provision for the agency to store the container in its own warehouse pending when the owner comes to clear whatever discrepancies.
Suleiman corroborated this by saying that once released have been secured for containers from customs control, the affected agency not yet satisfied with the importers documentation could take the container to its warehouse or that of the importer and seal the place pending when it is satisfied. By this, he said, container would have left the port to free space for other containers to be discharged.
The decision was taken in one of the monthly stakeholders’ meeting, which was attended by representatives of all the security and regulatory agencies in the ports as well as licensed Customs agents, Cotecna and APM Terminals. The issue of examination timetable for cargoes was addressed at the meeting and it was resolved that beginning from June 27, one-stop-shop examination of cargo will formally commence at the port.
Although the decisions taken at the meeting obviously were applied, more than six months down the line, the problem rather than abate has assumed an alarming proportion. Although the new Customs Area Controller, Adamu Yusuf Garko is making some efforts towards the challenging situation, at press time it was difficult to ascertain how far he has gone.
Christian Chinedu Ogbonna, the Custom Public Relations Officer, PTML Command said it was necessary that something be done to address the situation. He said that since the problem began, the average importer has lost so much and that the whole scenario is not just about importers but that the average consumer is the one suffering. He advocated that shipping companies should make use of their holding bays to ease the congestion problem.