Government Policies, Customs Tariff Fuelling Cargo Diversion – NPA MD

The managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA),
Hadiza Bala-Usman has bemoaned government policies and high Customs
duty as factors responsible for cargo diversion out of Nigerian
seaports.

Speaking last week at the just concluded third Maritime
Stakeholders Interactive Forum held in Lagos, the NPA MD said
cargoes diverted to neighbouring seaports are mostly of banned
items and those of higher Customs tariff.

Her words, “Somebody talked about cargo diversion rocking
Nigeria’s port, but in reality, those cargoes being diverted are
items that are banned or have high tariff in Nigeria. Items that
are banned are typically diverted to our neighbouring countries and
then smuggled into Nigeria because it is difficult for anybody to
bring in banned items through Nigeria’s ports.

She also attributed shallow draft of Nigerian seaports as
another challenge that fuel diversion. “Another challenge that
leads to cargo diversion in Nigeria has to do with the absence of
deep seaports,” she said. “Very large vessels cannot come and berth
at our ports because depth of draft of about 17 metres does not
exist in Nigerian waterways.

“What we have in Nigeria is a maximum of 13 metres, so very
large vessels cannot come into our ports and berth. Due to this,
these very large vessels go to our neighbouring countries to berth,
and then smaller vessels are brought in to offload them.

“I heard somebody asking questions as to why we cannot dredge
our ports further to accommodate these very large vessels. As we
all know, our ports are river ports and their channels cannot be
dredged further from 13 metres to 17 metres. The design and depths
of our quays are within those limits of the 13 metres draft.“What
we need to do is to facilitate and conclude the deep seaports being
proposed within a timely manner. That is what will bring our ports
into a competitive state within the sub-region. Our ports are
currently not competitive because the trend now is to bring in very
large vessels in-view of economy of scale. So, it’s not an issue of
further dredging that is making our ports uncompetitive, it’s an
issue of having deep seaports.”

She however warned that Nigeria’s ports are currently running
out of space due to increasing numbers of overtime cargoes in the
various port terminal. She further urged the minister of
transportation to begin discussion with the management of the
Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) over the prompt removal of the huge
numbers of overtime cargoes at the ports.

“We currently have huge volumes of overtime cargoes in our ports
terminals. The last time an auction was done was in early 2015. We
have written severally to the NCS over these overtime cargoes. The
Customs mentioned that they will need to pull the overtime cargoes
from the port terminals to Ikorodu for auction, but we have told
them that there is what is called ‘On the spot auction’.

“It is important for the Customs to go and auction on the spot
because the port terminals are filled to the brim with overtime
cargoes, and there are no more space for business. This constitute
a very huge challenge to our port system and I will appeal to the
Honourable Minister to help prevail on the NCS over this.”

Subscribe ToNairalaw News!