Containers
By Uchenna Eletuo
Lagos, March 20, 2018 (NAN) Some maritime stakeholders in Lagos on Tuesday appealed to industry regulators and shipping companies to designate bonded terminals as depot for empty containers to decongest Lagos ports.
The stakeholders, who expressed the viewpoints in interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, said that using the abandoned terminals in Lagos State would help in decongesting traffic on the ports’ access roads.
According to them, more than 3,000 jobs have been lost since shipping companies stopped keeping cargoes in these privately-owned facilities.
Mr Solomon Steven, a Terminal Manager with the Sappid Bonded Terminal, Lagos, said that the terminals were created to act as buffer to the ports in the 90s.
“However, with the concession of the ports, the `land lord’ model of operation has seen these facilities gone moribund with attendant loss of jobs.
“The seaport terminal are not doing well by denying these outside terminals cargoes while empty and laden containers are competing for space in the ports.
“Remember that these outfits were created with government’s approval, and for years now, these places acquired with huge resources have been lying fallow to the disadvantage of the investors,’’ he told NAN.
Mr Jude Echezie of the Nigeria Ship Chandlers Association said: “If the once boisterous bonded wares can be used as depot for empties, it will help in no small measure to the ease of doing business in the ports.
“Many truck drivers spend days trying to drop empty containers in the ports because there are limited spaces.
“Many vehicles park for days on the Apapa ports roads, carrying empty containers, most of which are turned back at the point of delivery to join the line all over again for lack of space in the ports.
“These outside terminals can be utilised as holding bay for empties pending when there will be space in the ports.”
Echezie said that the use of bonded terminals for empty containers would bring relief to the ports. (NAN)
EUC/FLP/IGO
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Edited by Folorunso Poroye/Ijeoma Popoola