The major stakeholders in the Nigerian maritime industry have agreed to make sacrifices and give concessions in their areas of operation in order to solve the menace of gridlock that has almost crippled business in the port city of Apapa, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), Barr. Hassan Bello has said.
Bello who made this disclosure while interacting with journalists on the sidelines of the Stakeholders’ Appreciation Night organized by the Council last week said that the issue of Apapa traffic will soon be over as according to him, the federal government had adopted short terms, medium term and long term solution to the menace.
He noted that at a meeting held last Thursday in Lagos, stakeholders agreed to make sacrifices in order to restore order in Apapa.
According to him, “The terminal operators are going to make sacrifice, the shipping companies will not charge demurrage for about three months, the truckers will lower their cost from the astronomical cost they are having now to a lower cost of forty to thirty thousand Naira, the Nigerian Ports Authority will also review their holding bay policy, the task force which is headed by the Navy is also looking at various ways of looking at these things.
“So, the federal government in the meantime is connecting the ports with rail transportation so that there will be evacuation of cargoes. We depend on only one mode of transport and that is the road transport and this will not be the solution. Even some terminals are creative, they are using the inland waterways to evacuate cargoes and if we have pipelines, we wouldn’t have the tank farms and we wouldn’t have tankers in Apapa. There must be control of traffic, it is modern traffic management, it is not allowing anybody access to the port unless you have something to do there.
“So, the Nigerian Ports Authority is working very hard every day to make sure that these things are a thing of the past. There is road construction going on, there are palliatives by Dangote, there are so many things that when they crystalize, you will see that you will not even talk about this congestion”.
The NSC boss observed that the road was blocked because everybody was rushing to offload the container so that demurrage would not apply adding that knowing that they now have three months free demurrage period, the rush to drop containers would no longer be there.
“So, it will be taken systematically, it will be taken easily and if you have a container to return, you relax, take your turn because it is only when you allow call up system that you will be called to do something and the call up system is being fine-tuned so that we don’t have everybody on the road trying to offload containers, that will be chaos, that is brigandage if you ask me and I think this idea were formulated, we are going to have the authorities; the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, the Nigerian Ports Authority and the task force, the truckers have been working, we have been meeting almost every week or so now”, he said.
On when the concessions would be effective, he said,” Probably in two weeks’ time, you will see that the order is out, that these are the things which everybody will do. For example, NPA will lose some money but that is their contribution, it is like general average, you have to make sacrifice, the truckers will have to make sacrifice, the shipping companies will do same, the terminal will do same. Shipping companies will not charge demurrage for that three months besides the free periods will be extended to ten days from five day”.
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