…Wants Shippers’ Council to sit up to its responsibility
A former Sole Administrator of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA, Otunba Abdulazeez Babatunde Mukaila has said that it will be unreasonable if not criminal for anyone, government agencies or service providers to be contemplating increment in charges in the Nigerian Ports at this period.
Mukaila who made his feelings known about planned increment in charges by the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, some terminal operators and shipping lines in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos recently, pointed out that the economic situation in the country right now did not permit such.
He recalled that just last year or thereabouts, there was an increment across board for terminal operators even as he wondered what had changed that they should wake up again to be contemplating another increment within 12 months.
“The service delivery is getting poorer. I bet you, where is the terminal operator that can beat up his or her chest and say yes, we are doing great about service delivery? Maybe you give it to Grimaldi but Grimaldi is a closed cut port.
“You will observe that it’s only in Grimaldi that you don’t see bonded terminals attached to it, they just remain where they are and they are giving their best within the ambit of what they can provide. They have a dedicated port and that is it. You won’t see any other thing attached to Grimaldi. So, I give it to them.
“Besides that, there’s none, not even a shipping line that can score 60 to 65 percent. So, for them to be contemplating increment,I wouldn’t know on what basis, it does not make sense really”, he stated.
Regretting that the NPA was just waking up to port infrastructural decay that did not start today, he however, reminded the Authority that the ripple effect of this planned increment will be felt by an average Nigerian shipper who he said was bound to input all these costs into the overall cost of importing the goods thereby transferring them to the final consumer.
“I will like to say that it is not normal, presently, for any government of the day to contemplate increment especially in the part of service delivery of the terminal operators who while we wait for the renewal of their concession agreement, have not impacted anything, have not improved on their service, so, what are they increasing cost for?
“Someone was asking me just yesterday, what is the effect of none renewal of the concession agreement of the existing terminal operators and I asked, what impact? There’s none! If they renew it today, if they don’t renew it in the next two years, I have not seen any impact on the day to day running of cargo delivery. AP Moller will still tell you we are open for business and you still see a lot of trailers not going into the port.
“And it’s very simple arithmetic, once it’s around Friday, the server will be down. Naturally, once it’s even afternoon time, the server will be down so that you can raise additional duty. The trucks are just in the queue static and you claim you are dishing out service delivery rating, how many containers you must have handled. It doesn’t impact on the road, it doesn’t impact on the cost of transportation presently, because cost is dynamic. If you create artificial scarcity, the cost will go up and the costs are going up”, he said.
Mukaila who is also the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Mickey Excellency Nigeria Limited warned the Nigerian Shippers’ Council to get deep down and see what the bottlenecks were in terms of operation and dismantle them if it really wants to transmit to port economic regulator.
“It took the Nigeria Customs Service as a lead agent breathing down the neck of AP Moller to get containers positioned. Severally, the Customs Area Controller of Apapa will have to be interceding for the terminal operators to get the containers on the ground for the customs to examine and let them move.
“The truth of the matter is and that will be exposed very soon, the handling equipment that they have are old, few and they overused those few equipment. And how do they do that? On arrival of a new vessel, they divert all the handling equipment to acquire those boxes and abandon the ones already in the terminals and let the demurrage accumulate.
“They divert all the equipment to welcome new vessels and that is how you see a lot of trucks outside because there’s no handling equipment to handle containers that want to exit. They want to acquire more. Once they succeeded in dropping those boxes, they start charging demurrage on them. Then, they go back to where they left the operation.
“This is what they are doing and nobody is saying it and nobody is intervening. Shippers’ Council is close to the port, they can do on the spot assessment, count how many trailers go in a day, time each trailer when they go in through the port gate and when they come out.
“The Shippers’ Council should be more inquisitive about how to unbundle the operational challenges in the port as it concerns shipping companies because I do know that the Shippers’ Council does not have that power to move into the port. It has to be in conjunction with the Nigerian Ports Authority. While the NPA handles the terminal operators, the Shippers’ Council should be able to handle the shipping lines.
“We used to call them dogs that can bark but cannot bite. So, I want to see them bear their fangs and then bite,I want to see consequences for the Nigerian Ports to move forward. It shouldn’t be business as usual, they shouldn’t be untouchables”, he submitted.
Photo: Otunba Abdulazeez Babatunde Mukaila, immediate past Sole Administrator, ANLCA.
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