FG Orders NPA To Move 2,000 TEU Overtime Containers To Onne Port

Federal Government has ordered the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to move 2,000 Twenty Equivalent Units (TEU) of overtime containers to Onne Port, in Port Harcourt in the next one month.
The cargo movement is to create more spaces at the Lagos ports for vessels that have been waiting on the high sea for barely one month now to discharge their consignments.
With the arrangement, the all goods that have been at the ports for 90 days and above will be evacuated, rather than the earlier decision to divert vessels to the Eastern ports.
Speaking with the managing director of NPA, Abdulsalam Mohammed, in Lagos recently, he said the organisation is negotiating with Julius Berger to transfer the containers.
He explained that 500 Twenty Equivalent Units (TEU) of containers would be moved on each voyage, stressing that it would go a long way to reduce the waiting time of vessels.
According to Mohammed, a total of 81,000 TEUs were discharged at the Lagos ports from December 28 to March 1, 2009 excluding the ones already at the ports before this period.
Giving detailed explanation of cargo movement at the ports, the managing director said 40,000 were transferred to the bonded terminal, while 48,000 containers were delivered to the consignees through fast track to big organisations.
The NPA boss further stated that within the period, 937 containers were transferred to Ikorodu Lighter Terminal as overtime cargo, while only 9,000 containers were cleared directly from the ports.
He expressed dissatisfaction the congestion had persisted at the port because the number of goods going out through direct cargo clearance were too small, when compared to the number of consignments that come in everyday.
Also speaking, the director, Maritime Service of the ministry of transportation, Musa Karam, said some importers leave their goods at the ports, looking for markets, while some are running around for fund to take delivery of their consignments, which is not supposed to be. He pointed out that the Federal Government has given the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), the authority to gazette all overtime cargo for auction, stressing that they would not wait for the importers for ever. It would be recalled that in 2005, a total of 7,000 overtime containers were transferred to Ikorodu Lighter Terminal and other bonded terminal across the country where they were gazetted for auction.
However, some of the containers developed wings and flew to other unapproved locations. In the same manner stakeholders are also advising government to be careful to avoid a repetition of the 2005 incident as it is poised to rid the seaports of all overtime containers.

- BY MELODY NWOBIA

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