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Powerful Maritime cabals have been identified as being the brain behind the unending gridlock that has characterized the Apapa area of Lagos and the rising inflation currently witnessed in the country.
This was revealed by the Chairman/CEO of Bonntex Nigeria Shipping services and a member of Association of Nigerian Customs Licensed Agents (ANLCA) Chief Boniface Okoye in his keynote address at a special Congress of the Powerful Pen Media Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists held recently in Lagos.
The Shipping magnet said some powerful people in the industry have grouped themselves to hold the maritime industry hostage by deliberately causing hardship within the roads accessing the TinCan Island and Apapa Ports which happens to be the two largest and most viable ports in the county.
According to Chief Okoye, the Apapa and TinCan ports receives more than 65% cargo inflow in the county, yet lacks the needed management and maintenance needed for the free flow of traffic, he also lamented how the Shipping companies who are most cases the terminal operators frustrate the clearing process thereby forcing the Nigeria importers and their agents to ensure unnecessary demurrage. They also devise means to disrupt empty containers from being returned to their terminals at the appropriate time thereby making importers lose the container deposits and this, in turn, increases the cost of trucking leaving the end-users to bear the brunt.
These cabals, according to the Shipping guru includes some senior NPA officials, the terminal operators, shipping companies and some truck owners and their agents and the Nigeria Shippers Council who supposedly the economic regulator of the industry fails to live up to her responsibility of enforcing the law against them.
Some notable maritime Stakeholders who graced the Congress and aired their views on the traffic crisis includes Alhaji Isa Kazim, Chairman, TinCan Port Chapter of National Council of Managing Directors of Customs Licensed Agents, Mr H. Okwuosa- The National Secretary, National Council of Managing Directors of Customs Licensed Agents and a top official of National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), Alhaji Inuwa
In a communique issued at the end of the deliberation, the stakeholders in conjunction with the Powerful Pen media Chapel recommended the following ways to curb the situation.
The Federal Government should open up Eastern Ports and other ICDs in the country in order to ease the pressure on Apapa ports.
NPA must wake up to its responsibility of managing the port access roads.
Barge operations should be encouraged to decongest the ports.
Traffic managers creating artificial toll-gates to collect huge sums into private pockets must be prosecuted, to serve as a deterrent to others.
Terminal operators/Shipping companies not providing holding bays must be sanctioned accordingly.
Individuals constituting a nuisance, who have no business on the ports access roads must be forced to leave the terrain.
