Following the withdrawal of services by freight forwarders and clearing agents at Ports & Terminal, Lagos ports terminals may become congested as more ships berth in the coming days.
According to reports, about four ships carrying over 8,000 vehicles will berth at the two ports between Wednesday and Monday.
This came as port officials said the terminals were already battling capacity issues, noting that over 4,000 vehicle slots meant to have become vacant were still being occupied by vehicles.
Also speaking, the Customer Care Manager, Five Star Logistics Terminal, Tin-Can Island port, Chuks Okereafor, said that the terminal was almost filled up as well.
He, however, noted that the terminal is not expecting any ship until the first week of March 2022.
Okereafor said, “I will say that we are almost two-thirds filled up. No vessel is waiting to berth in our terminal, they have all gone, the container ship belonging to MLC comes like two or three times a month, we just finished the last one and the vessel is gone. We are expecting RCC from the USA with over 2,000 vehicles; the ship is coming on March 2, 2022. Already, we have a container ship that has berthed; MLC Mila has already taken berth. The next Roll-On-Roll-Off is coming on March 2, and we other ships coming on March 7th and 10th.”
“The only thing is that we are not expecting any RORO until the first week of March. It is not as a result of the strike, it is already pre-planned. Most of our vehicles coming with RORO are supposed to be from March-the ones coming from Europe and America. So we are a bit lucky that we are not expecting any vessel.”
“We are having a lot of vehicles at the terminal already, especially the new ones meant to be delivered within this week. But I don’t think they (agents) can take delivery if the strike continues” he said.
He, however, said the terminal was planning to grant a waiver to importers on delayed vehicles.
He said, “Definitely, we are going to grant a waiver and that is a very big loss to the company. We have sympathy for our customers because they have been with us, the management will always do something. We know the situation when it comes to trade. If there is no buyer there won’t be any seller. The cargoes are already in Nigeria, so the company will definitely do something about the waiver at the right time. The strike has a little bit affected delivery. When you don’t make delivery, there are losses. If you are supposed to deliver, for instance, 200 vehicles, and you can’t do that, it is a loss. When workers are paid without working, it is also a loss.”
– Punch