The National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) has described the claims by shipping companies that their empty containers are being diverted to other use and in some cases sold off after its contents have been discharged as insincerity and a ploy to hold on to the container deposit made to them by the importers.
The Lagos State Vice Chairman, Dry Cargo Section of NARTO, Alhaji Abdullahi Inuwa Mohammed who stated this in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos was reacting to claims by shipping companies that about 1,600 empty containers were yet to be returned to them weeks after they had been taken from the terminals suggesting that they may have been sold off or converted to other uses by the truckers in connivance with the agents.
Responding, Mohammed dispelled the insinuation while adding that shipping companies have responsibility to Nigerians importers which according to him was for them to provide bays for the return of the empty containers which he said they have failed to live up to.
“How many of them have holding bays to receive empty containers? They don’t have holding bays and you see the hazards that our drivers are exposed to. You can go to Kano and come back, all within seven days, but for you to move from stadium to wharf, you spend fifteen to twenty days unless if your pocket will speak for you.
“So, they used that as a ploy to be draining the deposit out of the importer. Also, if the clearing agents are putting blames on the truckers, I will say that the clearing agents are benefitting one way or the other if not, they are the ones to fight this nonsense to a stop to save their customers who are the importers but along the line, you see that they are silent about it.
“If a truck has an accident, there must be police report, nobody will rule out accident. Before now, when this container deposit was not there, the shipping companies used to go round to look for their containers. I believe if that container deposit is abolished, you will see that all these problems that we are encountering as gridlock, there will be none because they will sit up”, he said.
On why truck owners always tow away their trucks from the accidents scenes leaving the boxes lying on the scene of the accident days after it occurred, the NARTO chieftain responded,” Actually, when there is an accident, first of all, you have to recover the truck because you need to have a crane to be able to lift the container. If you have delay in recovering the container, it may be because of the site where the accident happened as a result of the inability to get a crane to recover it at that time but after negotiation with crane operator, the container will ultimately be recovered except in a situation where it is badly damaged, they will take the picture alongside police report and meet the clearing agent”.
On the claims that truckers prefer taking empty containers to the ports rather than returning them to the holding bays as it enable them negotiate for new jobs at the ports instead of leaving empty as may be the case with the holding bays, Mohammed retorted,” It is a lie, last time I saw a publication by NPA management and we asked our members to start taking those empty containers there, they went to one Bollore bay and they said that they were not aware.
“We have told NPA management, any loaded container that is leaving the port; they should stamp and indicate where the empty container will be returned. Has anything like that happened? No! And if they said they have their holding bay, all those holding bays that they mentioned, we will assign our members to be desk officers alongside NPA desk officers for them to know that any of our members’ trucks that are coming to the holding bay is allowed to drop his empty container there as they said.
“The shipping companies as I have just told you, they are just giving that as an excuse to drain the container deposit paid by importers. Secondly, they don’t want to spend money for the acquisition of land for a holding bay, the handling equipment, the labour and the logistics of bringing back the empty containers to the ports. So, if you now calculate this, it is a huge amount of money, then coupled with the delays because of gridlock. They should provide a holding bay”.
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1 Comment
Thank God that truth about the problem in Apapa as finally come out for people to see. All this while people say is the Road but we can now see that is not the Road but the shipping companies . Example is the day Gov. Ambode came to Apapa. See what happen that day, no single traffic that day ,why? Please tell me is it the existing road or anther road. Tell all the shipping companies to do the right thing.