…Says command raked in N116bn in nine months
The Command Public Relations Officer of the Ports and Terminal Multiservices Limited (PTML), Mr. Mohammed Yakubu has said that the effect of the closure of the Nigerian borders is being felt at the command as vehicle throughput has now risen from 25 percent to 35 percent.
Yakubu who disclosed this in a chat with newsmen in Lagos stated that there had been massive increase in vehicle throughput coming to Lagos ports generally, particularly PTML which according to him had translated to increase in revenue profile of the command.
He disclosed that the command has collected a total of one hundred and sixteen billion Naira (N116, 000, 000, 000) in the first nine months of 2019 adding that border closure helped a lot in achieving this feat as can be seen in the revenue collected in the month of August and September.
In his words, “It has a great impact because the number of vehicles coming into PTML is highly on the increase. If you look at the revenue profile, the revenue has peaked because we have so far generated N116 billion in the last nine months and our annual revenue target is N123 billion. So, with this, I am hoping and I know actually, we are not only going to meet our target but we are going to surpass our target. So, it has a tremendous impact on our revenue profile because vehicles coming into PTML now have risen from 25 percent to 35 percent.”
He however assured, contrary to the fears being expressed by port users that PTML management had the capacity to manage the expected further rise in vehicle throughput at the terminal as a result of the border closure.
On his part, the Sole Administrator, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Tincan Island chapter, Mr. Ojo Peter Akintoye while acknowledging that cargo throughput at the seaports in Lagos had increase as a result of the border closure however disagreed that the increase in volume of cargo was responsible for the recent upsurge in gridlock.
He however attributed the resurgence of gridlock in Apapa in recent times to massive road reconstruction in Apapa with little or no supervision of the contractors handling the projects.
According to him, “There is no doubt about that there is an increase in the volume of imports through the seaports but I want to disagree that it was because of the increase in volume that we are having the traffic gridlocks. But I still need the statistics for me to know the output for the last one or two months. But there is no doubt about it that the throughput had risen. Not only that, you can agree with me that in terms of security, the threat to this country has reduced as a result of that exercise. Secondly, the people are now willing to go back to the farm as a result of that exercise. We may not see the result immediately, but surely, it is a right step in the right direction.”
Also speaking, the Chariman, Association of Registered Freight Forwarders Nigeria (AREFFN), Mr. Darrick Ige disagreed with the position of Akintoye and Yakubu saying that food items were not coming through the ports as they would go through a long procedure for them to be cleared through the port.
He added that this was so because food items would need to go through NAFDAC and other government regulatory agencies which many importers were not ready to go through even as he observed that rice do not come through the ports because they were contraband.
“So, the status quo at the ports still remained the same. The information is false, it is not true. I refuse to accept that. The volume of importation at the port is still the same, nothing changed. In terms of vehicles, the volume of vehicles still remained the same; I have not seen any difference.
“The only thing is that most of the people that are supposed to be passing through these (Southwest) borders are going through the northern borders. So, they should pay attention to the northern borders. So, they are not passing through these borders. There are people that specialized in smuggling, they have taken that as their occupation, if customs block one place, they will still look for another place and pass through there. So, most of them have shifted their base to northern borders not even to the ports here”, he said.
On whether or not the border should remain closed, he said, “I have my way; I will say that government should allow competitive market. If there is competitive market, price will go down but if they monopolize the market, they will just determine the price on their own because they know that there is nothing else you can do. If Nigerians are producing their own rice and they produce it to quality and they have imported rice and the price of the imported rice is moderate not high, people will go for the lesser price. Now, you are monopolizing the market, how do you want the price to come down? If there is no demand for imported rice and the demand for local rice is high, automatically, the importers of foreign rice will go out of market by themselves.”
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