The Chairman, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Lillypond/Ijora chapter, Rev. Emmanuel Agubanze has called for some of the parking spaces occupied by the AP Moller (APM) Terminal to be taken over by the Lillypond management.
Agubanze who made this call in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos said that APMT had no business taking over the whole spaces it now occupy at the Apapa ports.
He argued that following the fact that APMT is a terminal operator, it has no right to the berthing spaces as well as the sea side.
He added that APMT should be restricted to the terminal and should not be allowed to control which ship should go to which area.
According to him,” We must not forget, there is a need for some parking spaces at the APMT to be taken over by whoever will be the concessionaire in Lillypond. APMT has no business taking over the whole spaces, they are just terminal operators, the berthing spaces, the sea side should not belong to them. These are some of the things the government has done in error, it is just like a give away. You no longer remember the security of the nation, the sea side should belong to Nigeria. It is part of the Nigerian territorial property.
“APMT should just be restricted to the terminal, they should not control which ship should go to which area. But what is happening now is that they are controlling which ship go to which terminal. That is why we are having the problem at Lillypond because NPA should still play its pilotage role, they should be the ones to take that decision, which vessel goes to Lillypond, Tin can and other terminals.
“They are lying fallow because they are not being fed by APMT who now claim that they have expanded so much and they need containers to be in their container yard but it is wrong because the port is a transit area, it is not a warehouse. Containers should come there and move out immediately to a place where the customs procedures should now continue and make sure that the terminal, the port is free of containers so that there will be no congestion”.
It will be recalled that Agubanze had earlier called for the revocation of the contract signed between the operators of the Lillypond terminal and the Federal government through the NPA and a new bid conducted for serious investors to take over and turn around the fortunes of the depot since according to him, the depot is no longer in the hands of the original owners but APMT.
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