Nigeria’s Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola has cried out over the over 6000 cargoes abandoned at the Lagos seaports.
He said that most of the cargoes have been abandoned in Apapa and Tin-Can Island ports since 2011, stressing that the abandonment does not make economic sense.
The Minister made this disclosure on Wednesday during his visit to the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) headquarters in Lagos, adding that there is need to engage Nigeria Customs Service on the best ways to evacuate the cargoes in order to free up the space at the Ports.
‘Talking about the abandoned cargoes, I went on a tour and it was in Apapa port that they took us to where we have overtime cargoes and they said some have been there since 2011. So I now want to believe that it is likely to happen in other ports, particularly, Tin-Can and Apapa ports where they have about 6000 abandoned cargoes.
‘You can imagine how much space the cargoes are occupying and the type of revenue the country is loosing. So I am going to engage the management of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to see what we can do. There must be a time frame by which acargo can stay otherwise declared abandoned. To have kept cargo since 2011, it is unrealistic and unacceptable,’ he said.
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According the Minister, long bureaucratic processes and corruption are some factors that have elongated cargo clearance time thereby frustrating shippers and leading to the jettisoning of containers at ports. The Minister, however, assured that he would engage the leadership of the NCS on the issue in a bid to evacuate the overtime cargoes and address other bottlenecks.
Oyetola stated that he was impressed with the accomplishments of NSC in recent years even as he promised to partner the agency in tackling the issues highlighted as requiring urgent actions.
In his welcome address, the Executive Secretary of NSC, Emmanuel Jime, highlighted issues requiring attention to include the amendment of NSC Act to institute effective port economic regulation.
Other areas the NSC boss mentioned are; “Actualisation of one-percent (1%) freight stabilisation fee on import and export to Shippers Council as enshrined in the NSC Subsidiary Legislation. Implementation of the International Cargo Tracking Note (ICTN); Establishment of a National Fleet.”
The NSC boss also expressed delight that the Minister has already shown commitment to transform the economic fortunes of the nation via the maritime sector.
Also speaking the NSC Director, Strategic Planning and Research, Mr. Rotimi Anifowose highlighted some of the recent gains of the NSC to include promotion of digitalization and automation of all port processes.
“In order to reduce the incidences of human contact in cargo delivery and abolish manual documentation for efficient service delivery, the Council is promoting the Digitalization and Automation of all Port Processes in Nigeria. This resulted into the digitalization of all processes by providers of shipping and ports services,” he said.