Congestion at Nigeria’s major seaports, Apapa and Tin-Can in Lagos, is not abating, and industry analysts are putting the blame squarely on the growing number of overtime and abandoned cargoes, clearing bottlenecks and border closure.
Shipping liners now wait more than 25 days in Apapa Container Terminal, West Africa’s busiest container terminal, before accessing the port to discharge their cargo, as against 20 days earlier in the year, according to German shipping line Hapag-Lloyd.
The waiting time at Tin-Can Island Container Terminal, however, has remained at over 10 days, same as last month’s figure as contained in Hapag-Lloyd’s January operational report published by Container News, a shipping and maritime news portal specialised in liner shipping and its container applications.
In the last quarter of 2019, shipping liners waited an average of 10-15 days to have access to the ports to discharge their cargo, as against the seamless process that obtained at the ports before the congestion began.
As at October 2019, APM Terminals had overtime containers numbering 2,259 boxes, equal to 3,000 TEUs, according to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).
APM Terminals had in November 2019 raised alarm of an impending congestion in Nigerian ports which it said was due to substantial increase in volume of containers arriving through the seaports and presence of abandoned containers occupying spaces in the terminal.
At Ports and Terminal Multiservices Limited (PTML) located in Tin-Can Island, overtime cargo currently occupies more than 30 percent of the commercial space, BusinessDay check shows. Industry observers blame this on the failure of the management of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to auction such containers.
The situation has, however, been compounded by the border closure.
“Congestion in the nation’s seaports in Lagos was escalated by the closure of Nigeria’s land borders by the Federal Government six months ago,” said Tony Anakebe, managing director, Gold-Link Investment Ltd, a Lagos-based clearing and forwarding firm.
Since Nigeria closed its borders with Benin Republic in August last year, most ships with Nigerian-bound cargoes that previously berthed in ports in neighbouring countries and their cargoes subsequently smuggled into the country now come through Nigerian ports, Anakebe told BusinessDay on phone.
The container dwell time in Nigerian ports has also increased due to bottlenecks hindering importers and their agents from taking delivery of their consignment as and when due, he said.
“The Lagos State new policy on motorcycle (Okada) movement has limited movement in and out of ports. Most times, Customs officers resume work around 12pm and they would not work beyond 4pm. This, coupled with the persistent gridlock on port access roads, has reduced the official working hours of Customs officers and other agencies involved in cargo clearing,” he said.
Hassan Bello, executive secretary, Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), said the port system, which is private sector-driven after it was concessioned over 12 years back, lacks efficiency in its operations due to logistics and infrastructure problems. He said cargo clearing delays also arises from the 100 percent manual examination of cargo at the ports by Customs due to absence of scanners, pointing out the need to automate the ports for faster clearance of cargoes.
Scanners and national single window are important to accelerate cargo clearing process, and the roads outside the port are also important for efficiency to increase, Amine Mati, senior resident representative and mission chief for Nigeria at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said recently when he led a delegation of IMF on a visit to inspect port activities in Nigeria.
One possible way of ending port congestion and reducing gridlock at the ports is to put to use the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal which has the capacity to receive 15,000 containers, Lucky Amiwero, president, National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), said.
Amiwero, in a position letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, said using the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal would eliminate the possible litigation that would be generated from import trading community for diverting Lagos-bound cargoes to other ports as proposed by the NPA.
He listed Brawl phase 1, Baco liner, Kirikiri phase 2 and Kirikiri phase 3 as idle terminals that have capacity to accommodate 2,000, 4,000, 3,000 and 2,000 containers, respectively.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
