Business activities at the Onne Container Terminal, operated by West African Container Terminal (WACT), have come under threat as overtime and abandoned containers continue to pile up at the terminal.
The terminal, which in the last 10 months has invested billions of dollars in acquisition of plants and equipment to handle the growing volume of imports, is recording poor vessel turnaround and low efficiency in performance due to congestion.
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Due to insufficient space to discharge vessels calling Onne Container Terminal, ships now stay more than 10 days before they could have access into Onne Port to discharge laden containers.
Worried by the growing number of such containers, the management of WACT recently wrote the management of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to complain that agents have not been coming to pick their containers.
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BusinessDay findings show that the government is one of the greatest culprits in the ownership of overtime and abandoned cargoes. This is as over 80 percent of overtime cargoes at the nation’s ports are found to be owned by government agencies involved in various kinds of projects like independent power projects.
Speaking at the combined second and third quarters stakeholders meeting held in Port Harcourt and Onne Port, Al-Hassan Ismaila, port manager, Onne Port, said WACT also reported that to accommodate laden containers in Onne Container Terminal, they (terminal operator) had to convert part of their car parks and examination bay to stacking areas.
He said presently, berth occupancy at WACT terminal stood at 90 percent, showing that there was no space for vessels with laden containers to come and discharge.
“WACT terminal in Onne presently has about 1,500 containers that have been examined but are yet to be taken out by the owners. There is a limit to which the terminal operator can be able to accommodate this overflow,” Ismaila said.
According to Ismaila, the terminal has overtime containers littering the stacking areas of the port, which occupies over 30 percent of the stacking space in the terminal.
He, however, called on the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and freight forwarders to come to terms on what should be done to address the issue of congestion caused by abandoned and overtime cargoes in Onne Port.
He noted that the situation in addition to stalling the 48-hour cargo clearance policy of the Federal Government had also impacted seriously on the volume of cargoes that could be handled in Onne Port if importers take delivery of their consignments as and when due.
Reacting to this, Hadiza Bala-Usman, managing director of the NPA, said the authority was in discussion with the Nigeria Customs to find out what needs to be done to auction some of these cargoes.
“We have noted that a lot of containers have been abandoned by consignees and that WACT terminal is overflowing with overtime cargoes. People abandon their containers because they do not want their consignment to be subjected to 100 percent physical examination,” she said.
She said responsible consignees cannot abandon their cargoes at the port, saying the declarations made by a lot of consignees were not correct that was why many of them were afraid of 100 percent examination by Customs and other government agencies.
According to Bala-Usman, the NPA is taking up these issues to ensure that Nigerian ports are competitive, by having the required turnaround time for vessels as well as the right infrastructure and machinery for cargo evacuation at ports.
“We will ensure that all these cargoes are auctioned if people do not come to pick them and pay the government the necessary charges attributable to such type of cargo. We also understand that overtime cargoes need to be moved to a particular location but we need Customs to begin on-the-stop auction because that is what we need to do at this time,” she said.
She, however, said there was a need for freight forwarders to notify their clients on the need to not abandon their containers because the government was insisting on a 100 percent examination.
“It shows that their declarations are wrong and the government needs to institute a way of auctioning these containers because it shows the owners do not want them,” she said.
