Association Discredits Ports Concessioning Regime

The International Freight Forwarders Association (IFFA) has lamented over the undue hardship facing importers and freight forwarders in the country under the ports concessioning regime at the nations seaports.

A member of the Association, Nze Ibe Igwe who decried the situation in an interview with The Tide at the Port Harcourt port complex on Monday, said that the Federal Government believes that the concessining of ports is a pragmatic step towards funding permanent solution to the multiple problems facing the maritime industry, especially in the area of cargo clearing, but that the exercise has rather brought undue hardship for importers and freight forwarders.

Igwe who is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of WEB freight forwarders (Nig.) Limited noted that although the Nigerian Ports Authority era had its own challenges, the idea of concessioning the port to private companies has brought untold hardship to importers, so that the problems of the port under NPA have become a child’s play.

Today, he said, both shipping companies and terminal operators have taken importers and their agents for granted, saying that it has become a crime to import goods through the Nigerian ports. “First of all, terminal operators lack bays for dropping containers, thus causing block-stocks. Ordinarily, stakeholders would have accepted this ugly situation if not that both shipping companies and terminal operators are both collecting rents and demurrages from us for their delivery inefficiency on imported goods.

“Under NPA, bonded terminals were fed with containers, thereby creating spaces in the terminal for both containers laden with goods and the empty ones. Today, the reverse is the case. Now the problem is that trucks laden with empty containers litter everywhere.

He further explained that clearing agents spend days to obtain shipping company and terminal operators Debit Note and equally spend days to obtain release after payments have been made, regretting that both shipping companies and terminal operators charges are so exorbitant.

He urged the Federal Government to look into the dubious activities of the operators at the ports.