Shippers Abandon 2000 Containers at Lagos seaports

ABIOLA Seun |

About 2000 overtime cargoes have allegedly been abandoned by importers at the Lagos seaports, investigation has shown.

The 2000 abandoned containers are different from the 655 power equipment the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) evacuated from the ports after 15 years of staying at the port.

Though, none of the remaining abandoned containers belonged to the TCN terminal operators said they are losing fortune to the space the containers are occupying in various terminals.

According to a senior manager in one of the container terminals in Lagos, he said for the past 18 months, they have been waiving storage charges for TCN to move the abandoned containers.

He also disclosed that even though it will be difficult to ascertain the number of abandoned containers, he however said about 2000 containers are lying unclaimed at the Lagos port.

“It will be difficult to know who owns what and what’s inside because the consignee can be different from owner, it may even be the contractor that abandoned so it may be difficult but maybe 2000 containers presently abandoned.

“We have a couple of containers that have been there for so long even when the TCN containers are supposed to be taken to Ikorodu for auction and the TCN went to the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), he said they must talk to Terminal Operators and when they went to the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, MS, Hadiza Bala-Usman, the same thing she said and that’s how we agreed on a waiver. If government has agreed on auction, terminal operators won’t get anything from it so we decided to give waiver which was to get something rather than get nothing.”

However, the Seaports Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN) disclosed that all TCN containers have been evacuated from seaports across the country.

In a statement by the spokesman of STOAN, Bolaji Akinola, he said the TCN has identified all containers stranded at the ports and taken delivery.

“With specific regards to the power equipment, the Federal Government has identified all the containers containing power equipment and taken delivery at the various terminals across the country. We are happy to have been part of the process of identifying and releasing these containers.”

The STOAN spokesman further stated that the evacuation of the containers freed up vital spaces for business.

“The delivery of the containers has also freed up vital spaces in the various terminals. Don’t forget that some of these boxes have been in the port for more than 12 years. I cannot tell if there are other containers laden with other types of goods but the ones containing power equipment have been delivered.

Akinola disclosed that the operators have waived a total N1.5bn on power containers abandoned but operators have seen such as sacrifice to the Nigerian economy.

“As terminal operators, we earn our revenue from cargo throughput, so whenever the cargo is sitting pretty in the terminal, we lose a lot of money. We waived more than N1.5 billion on these power containers that were delivered to the government. Perhaps that’s what you call loss because it is money that should have accrued to the operators. But then, it’s a huge sacrifice we had to make for our collective good and for steady power supply in Nigeria,” he said.