NAN-H-84
Cargo
By Uche Eletuo
Lagos, Dec. 8, 2016 (NAN) Stakeholders at the Ikorodu Lighter Terminal on Thursday called for the evacuation of overtime cargoes to the Ikorodu terminal.
The stakeholders told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that they had appealed to the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) to prevail on other agencies to facilitate the transfer of the overtime cargoes.
Mr James Kajuola, an official of the Sapid Bonded Terminal, whose firm manages the terminal behalf of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), said that the place had become “a ghost town’’.
“We know with the intervention of the Shippers’ Council, we can begin to see some improvement in the place.
“Before, we were having 43 staff working here but today because of low business,we are operating minor services with few officials because many have been relieved of their jobs,’’ the official said.
A freight forwarder, Mr Obinna Okafor said that because of the non-evacuation of overtime cargoes to the designated terminal, the service providers in the terminal had relocated to Apapa.
“It has not been easy coming to Apapa to work because many of the works we execute at Ikorodu are not the same in Apapa. It is like coming to an unknown terrain,’’ Okafor said.
He said that with the current drive of the Shippers’ Council at getting things done normally as an industry regulator, “we believe things will change for the better’’.
“All we are saying is for the rules to be adhered to as non-compliance with the laid-down provisions is denying some people their means of livelihood,’’ Okafor said.
He said it was obvious that some officials were benefiting from the gross negligence of duty.
He urged the Nigerian Shippers’ Council as regulators to beam its search light on Ikorodu, to correcting the anomaly (NAN)
EUC/AJA
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(Edited by Adeleye Ajayi)