Shipping Line Urges Quick Containers Return To Terminals

International shipping line, Maersk, has urged the Federal Government to ensure that shipping lines delivered enough containers at terminals before transferring to holding bays to reduce cost of doing business.
Maersk Line Shipping Manager, Kike Codjoe, made the plea when the officials of the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) visited the company’s in Lagos, Wednesday.
“Since the directive by the Nigerian Port Authority in February/March, we have still not seen an increase of containers being returned to the holding bays.
“As a matter of fact, we see that truckers continue to take empty containers directly to the port.
“The truckers are doing so in order to bring out containers loaded with goods due to shortage of trucks and shunting movement of trucks can lead to increase in demand and cost.
“When we are talking about returning of containers to holding bays, the cost of shunting and transfer of containers back to the terminals will have multiplier effects on the customers,’’Codjoe said.
She said that the directive had involved so many movements which had also resulted to congestion on the ports access road, adding that if containers were being stored at the holding bays, the vessel would be sailing out hitch-free.
Codjoe said that there was the needs to ensure that enough empty container were available at the terminals to sail out.