Stakeholders seek 57.1% reduction of agencies at port to ease cargo clearance

Stakeholders in the shipping industry have called for the reduction of the multiple government agencies that participate in cargo clearance and documentation of import and export consignments in the nation’s seaports. These agencies of government, they say, currently numbered 14 are to be reduced to six, if Nigerian businessmen and importers would experience ease of cargo clearance and timely delivery of consignments to the importers’ warehouses.

“The presence of too many security agencies at the ports such as Plant Quarantine; Vet Quarantine; State Security Service (SSS); Police and Bomb Squad; NAFDAC and NDLEA etc are apparently interwoven in terms of functions and there is need to reconsolidate this,” says a recent report released by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI).

According to LCCI report, the approved agencies allowed to be in the port in line with the Federal Government port reform exercise are the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS); Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS); Nigerian Police Force (NPF); Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA); Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and Port Health Authority including the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).

The LCCI report further revealed that the number of agencies have exceeded the accredited number to the extent that it results to delay in cargo clearance at the port such that about 75 percent of the time spent to import cargo can be attributed to the avoidable delay while 64 percent time spent in export cargo, is spent on delay. The involvement of these agencies at the port has made 48 hours cargo clearance impossible as it takes an average of 14 days to clear cargo out of the port due to the difficulty in clearing cargo as the World Bank rightly rated Nigeria 182 out of 185 in the Ease of Doing Business Ranking.

Tony Anakebe, managing director of Gold-Link Investment Limited, blamed this delay for the high cost of doing business at the port as LCCI report attributed 50 percent of the entire cost of importing cargo on these delay. He said that many businessmen using Nigerian seaport have been forced to pay storage charges to terminal operators and demurrage to shipping companies for not taking delivery of their consignment as at when due. Anakebe, who noted that the nation’s seaport needs the establishment of a single window, an online platform that would encourage the operators, port users and all government agencies involved in cargo clearance at the port, to clear, approve and release cleared cargoes without one-on-one interaction. This, Anakebe believed, would not only ensure faster clearance of cargo but would also help in reducing the ship waiting time at berth and help remove redundant government agencies from operating in the port.