‘Why Importers Abandon Cargoes At Seaport’

A shipping executive, Chief Jonathan Eze, has said that the difficult process in the clearing of cargo at the seaports and the accumulation of demurrages on them is responsible for the abandonment of cargos.
He urged the Federal Government to put things right to encourage importers and users of those facilities.
Eze, who is an executive member of the Shippers Association of Nigeria, in a chat with airport correspondents at the weekend, insisted that it was the cumbersome cargo clearing procedure that led shippers in the country to be moving their consignments to the neighbouring ports.
According to him, most importers abandoned their goods because the demurrage they are to pay is more than the value of the consignment at the port.
He said that apart from the importers, the end users of such goods, industry and the economy also lose out.
“When an importer knows that what he is going to pay on demurrage is more than the value of the goods, he will abandon the goods, and once he does that, everybody is losing.
“The people that use those goods will not have those goods to use. So, that is what we call a kind of strategy in materials in the system. Strategies in revenue both ways, and at the end of the day, you will see the whole of the port littered with abandoned goods helplessly.
“If government is doing what is right, I believe we will be able to make so much money. So, government has to put a lot of things right for the users of those facilities, otherwise the problem will continue.
“Our duty is to bring in the cargos, and we have so many cargos to control.

By: Corlins Walter