Nigerian ports may witness cargo diversion in coming months due to high cost—Shippers

The President of Shippers Association of Lagos State, Rev.Jonathan Nicol has predicted massive diversion of cargoes from Nigerian ports by his members in the second and third quarters of the year as a result of what he described as high cost of doing business.

While interacting with Journalists in Lagos at the weekend, Nicol claimed that the so called ease of doing business initiative of the Federal government at the port is a mere propaganda as the cost of doing business is still high.

“Now, we thought that with the Ease of Doing Business, the cost of doing business in this country would have been reduced because that is the purpose and I told them, without the reduction of the cost of doing business in this country, there will be no Ease of Doing Business. Just mentioning of the Ease of Doing Business, Nigeria catapulted to the costliest side.

“Let government give order for them to reduce the cost of doing business, then you and I will say yes, we have a country to do business with. The first quarter came as a result of inevitability; goods came because they have nowhere else to go. Where do you want industries to send their containers to other than our ports? So, the first quarter came as a result of goods that are already trapped in the system”.he declared.

The President of the association also disclosed that, the second and third quarters of 2018 may be a difficult time for Nigerian shippers whom he said are yet to exhaust the stocks they piled up in their warehouses since December 2017.
Nicol noted that the shippers devoted the first quarter of 2018 to disposing off the stocks in their various warehouses saying that they were not importing as much.

Rev.Jonathan Nicol sad,” I tell you, most of the industries you see today, their warehouses are filled up with goods, they can’t sell. So, the second and third quarters will tend to be very rough. Yes, they brought in a lot of goods during the December period and most of their warehouses are filled up with goods. So, they are not importing now as much.

“Even if you want to diversify, it is not something you do overnight, it is a gradual process. Our industries must be on stream and our goods must meet up with world standard because we like quality things. Until we get to that level where Nigerians themselves will say they want to buy made in Nigeria goods before you can now say alright don’t import foreign products”.

He observed that Nigerian bound cargoes were still going to other countries , adding that, what was coming to the Nigerian ports in most cases were for industries and some 5% to 8% imports from the informal sector.

He maintained that unlike those days, importation from the informal sector dominated the ports, the sector was dying slowly as they were now diverting their goods to the ports of the neighbouring countries rather than bring them through the Nigeria ports which in turn amounted to huge loss for Nigeria.

The SALS boss however recalled, that, they had suggested that the Nigerian shippers should be encouraged by law even as he pointed out that Nigeria has come of age where the senate should look at the activities of shippers and then promulgate an Act to protect Nigerian cargo.

“They are talking about N30 trillion infractions, it is not small money, so if you divide that by eight years, you will know how much the country is losing per year and if it’s worth it. Nothing stops the senate from protecting the possibility of Nigerian shippers leaving their domain because it is something that will support the government.

“So, we need a law, fashioned by the Nigerian Senate to protect Nigerian shippers and two, the government itself should through its various agencies, review the cost of doing business because some of them are just collecting our money without any service attached to it and it is not small money”, he added.