Freight forwarders under the aegis of ‘The Initiative’ who are operating at the Tincan 2, Lillypond terminal, Ijora has concluded plans to carry out a one day protest to bring the attention of the federal government to the refusal of the concessionaire of the terminal, AP Moller to move transit containers lying at its Apapa terminal to Tincan 2 for onward clearing by the agents.
Speaking on behalf of the Initiative, the Chairman, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Ijora chapter, Mr. Chinyere John Okoye accused APMT of sabotaging the efforts of the stakeholders at the terminal towards making it come back to life with activities.
Okoye who gave this indication during the meeting of the Initiative recently in Lagos stated that APMT, after subjecting them to go and market the terminal to their clients in order for them to use the terminal making use of True Bill of Lading, refused to transit containers destined to Lillypond as required of them without any cogent reason thereby subjecting them to payment of huge demurrage at Apapa.
He regretted that the terminal operator had abandoned the terminal which before now was yielding N30 billion to N40 billion in revenue per month to the federal government for close to four years now without working thereby making both the government and the stakeholders lose huge sums of money.
He accused the terminal operator of making a lot of money at the expense of Nigerians, milking the economy through demurrages at Apapa because they know that bringing containers to Lillypond would make them lose some money accruing to them in demurrage at Apapa hence their decision to hold on to them.
“No single container will move out of Apapa without paying at least N50,000 demurrage and here, we have up to four hundred customs officers working, doing nothing here. So, you can see that the federal government is losing revenue from here at the same time, the customs officers are staying here sleeping without work, at month end, they will go and collect their salaries. The stakeholders here are suffering because no work, even other government agencies like the NDLEA, Anti-Bomb, SSS, NAFDAC, Plant Quarantine, Police and others are here doing nothing and they are taking salaries.
“About two years ago, we had a meeting with them and we raised our concerns to them and they said that we should forget about stemming containers here, that we should go and market this place based on TBL, which we are doing. After they sent us to market this place and we started telling our importers that Lillypond is okay, that they can bring their containers here. As we were doing it, they were transferring containers here through the rails but after a while, they stopped using the rail, they even stopped the transire that they asked us to be doing, our containers are lying there at Apapa accumulating demurrage. They said for now, there is nothing like TBL, that we should go and find ways to bring our containers here.
“Before you bring any container from Apapa to here, it would cost not less than N300,000 but if you are using rail, it can cost N113,000. Don’t forget that it is their duty to bring that cargoes here but because they removed their hands from moving the containers to this place and they failed to give us any reason, now we do that ourselves and after you clear it from the customs here, you pay another N400,000 to the truckers to move the container to the final destination
“This people stopped operation since June this year, after June, this our new Controller here, Wushishi, had a meeting with them and they said those that have bill lading or ship on board between July and August 24th, 2018 should submit their letters. The Controller asked them, is it after clearing those of July and August the operation will stop again, they said no, that they should start with that one first. We submitted our letters but immediately those bills lading for July and August exhausted, they stopped collecting bill lading again”, he lamented.
The NAGAFF Chairman observed that on enquiry from APMT on why they stopped transiting containers to Lillypond, they were told by the terminal management that they (APMT) had issue with NPA as there were some papers that NPA was supposed to sign for them.
He further disclosed that they had written to the Nigerian Shippers’ Council on this matter twice but got no form of assistance adding that they had equally written to the Comptroller General of Customs who replied and told them to channel their complains to the Federal Ministry of Transportation which they did and only got a call from the Ministry confirming the receipt of their letter without any further action.
He continued,” NPA MD, when she visited here, we told her our challenges, she said we should put it in writing and at one of the stakeholders’ meeting at Eko Hotel, we went there and delivered the letter to her in person for her to read and appreciate our challenges here but up till now, we have not gotten any reply from her. Shippers’ Council and Maersk Line the same thing. This AP Moller you are talking about, we have gone to several meetings with them yet no positive result”.
On their next plan of action, he said,”Our next line of action is that we want to do some protest because as far as I am concerned, this terminal is number one dry port in Nigeria, a command with a Controller and up to over four hundred customs officers working in the terminal, maybe federal government don’t know whether Lillypond exist or not because if it is aware that this place is existing, it supposed to know the predicament of this place and it is supposed to call these people to order and ask them why”.
Also speaking, the Chairman of the Initiative and Chairman of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Mr. Olufemi Abiodun Olabanji regretted that after the money Nigeria spent in that terminal before giving it to APMT on concession, all those infrastructure put in place were allowed to decay as nobody uses it.
Olabanji pointed out that for over four months now, goods had been piling up in Apapa while importers were paying serious demurrage since they cannot change the documents which had destined the goods originally from the port of origin to Lillypond as port of final destination as doing so had its own problems too saying that the goods were right now in Apapa, but the terminal operator stopped accepting letters for containers to be transited to Lillypond.
“Customs has no problem, customs is ready to sign transit documents but the terminal operators stopped business entirely, they are not doing anything in Lillypond terminal, stemming of containers is not going on there, transiting of containers is not going on there, export is not going on there because the terminal is just dormant, nothing is happening in the terminal.
“So, we want government to look into this. Let the people in-charge of this terminal do their work, if they are not ready to work at the terminal, they should give way for others to take over because that place supposed to generate revenue for Nigeria. APMT should allow importers to bring their goods to Lillypond so that they can clear their goods at the right time.
All attempts to get the reaction of the APMT management on the matter proved abortive as all the calls place to the spokesman for the terminal were not answered at the time of filing this report.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has said that a new bidding process is about to be opened for a new concessionaire of the Lillypond Container terminal.
NPA, which confirmed the planned fresh bid round for the terminal through the Assistant General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Communication, Ibrahim Nasir, said the terminal would soon be open for fresh bidding as soon as the Public Private Partnership department of the agency concludes the paperwork.
“The PPP department is working on the modalities for placing adverts for new bids. Whoever is successful in the bid will be given a concession of the terminal. The terminal is originally designated as an agricultural export terminal,” he said.
Lillypond was concessioned in 2006 to AP Moller Terminals with the 10-year agreement having ended in 2016.
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