There has been minimal clearing at Lagos Ports because of the faulty scanners used for the examination of containers at the Apapa and Tin Can ports.
Both the Apapa and Tin Can ports have two scanners each and aside from not being able to clear their goods, importers have to pay demurrage which accrues on imported goods that are not cleared over a specified period.
The President, Shippers Association of Lagos, Rev. Jonathan Nicol told Punch that the final burden will be borne by end users of the imported products in form of high prices.
Nicol said “For over three weeks now, the scanners at the Apapa Port have broken down. The terminal operators have started charging demurrage and this has caused a lot of problems. I don’t know how they expect shippers to pay demurrages when they know that the Customs clearing process has broken down.
“The Nigerian Shippers Council has called for a stakeholder meeting; I hope everything is sorted out then.
“There is no reason the NCS cannot change all the scanners at Nigerian ports. The scanners presently in use at the Lagos ports were those that were purchased by the private companies, which previously handled our clearing process.
“Those scanners are old; with the number of cargoes coming through the Lagos ports, we need no less than four scanners each at the Apapa and Tin Can ports. These will ensure that a minimum of 400 containers are cleared daily.
“Instead, we are having a situation where when the scanners have worked for a while, they are given an hour to cool off before they are put to work again. This makes our ports very stressful places to do business.
“Goods are often shipped because people need them; when they are not cleared at the time they are supposed to be cleared, the service contract can be cancelled.
“The shippers lose both ways; he pays all the charges to the operators and the general public suffers because we add all the costs on the items.”