• Claim this will help curb empty container crisis
• Call for urgent review of FG’s fiscal policies on trade

The Maritime Researchers and Authors Association of Nigeria (MARASSON) has said the conversion of bonded terminals to holding bays will resolve, or more importantly, drastically reduce the challenge of empty container holding in the country’s maritime space.

They said the under-utilisation of facilities has led to the littering of maritime space with empty containers.

The National Secretary, MARASSON, Ajanonwu Vincent, in a memo, titled: “Challenges of the Nigerian Port Industry, Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders,” said there are sufficient, but under-utilised empty container holding bays in the country.

Vincent stressed the issue of empty container dropping has created problems for truck drivers, agents, importers and shipping companies.

He said shipping companies have found good business opportunities in the empty container-holding crisis, as they collect high demurrage from the late return of empty containers from the refundable deposits earlier paid by the importer or his agent, while they go ahead to send additional debit notes to the importer or his agent or both.

According to him, truckers are, at times, forced to push down the empty containers along the road or any other available space to free their trucks for other engagements.

Vincent said many questions needed to be answered, which include: “Why do shipping companies not want to acquire or invest in empty container holding bays business? Why do shipping companies prefer storing their empty containers in the Nigerian maritime domain instead of taking them back to the lessor overseas? Why are the shipping companies not complying with Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) policy that demands that ships that come to Nigeria with several laden containers must also take away an equal number of empty containers? Why do ship captains often prefer to sail home with ballast water instead of empty containers to balance their ship on the high sea?”

Vincent said the answers to these questions are time and cost, noting that it is cheaper for shipping companies to keep their empty containers in Nigeria, as it takes much longer time to load the empties on the ship for the return journey.

He said if this high number of empty containers is allowed to litter the Nigerian maritime domain at this time of economic recession, there will be no space to keep them when economic and trade booms return to Nigeria.
“Empty container holding bays are having problems receiving the thousands of empty containers. Although some of them have sufficient spaces to receive as many as 10, 000 to 20, 000 containers, they are having challenges. There often arose issues of reneging on agreements by the shipping companies. This has made some of them stop storing empty containers for shipping companies. But having studied the trend, we concluded that a different empty container holding approach will be a better workable option.

“The solution lies in the nearness of empty containers holding bays to the seaports. For example, ships run on time charter. No ship captain can afford to wait for three to five days to load empty containers. He would prefer to stabilise his ship with ballast water and sail away,” he said.

Vincent said during the group’s interaction with the some bonded terminals, they complained that the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) does not encourage dual-purpose bonded terminal operation, that is, combining empty container holding with bonded terminal operations.

The MARASSON boss said the empty containers need to be evacuated early enough, adding that another problem is how to easily converge all of them on the shore sides within the shortest possible time and cost-effective rates to avoid delays on the part of the ships that are on charter voyage.

He said for this reason, the researchers suggest the conversion of the Truck Transit Parks at Port Novo Creek, including the portion along the port service, with the proposed Ijora holding bay and the MSC Dock Yard for the empty container crisis to be contained for ease of operation, efficiency and effectiveness.

He said the association also observed that the road gridlock has forced terminal operators and prospective ones to pay greater attention to building terminals along Port Novo Creek.

Vincent said a good number of terminals are springing up there with the emergence of barging, which has helped them a lot.

The group also noted that with about 75 per cent drop in importation mainly due to the fiscal policies of the Federal Government, there is an urgent need for a review of the policies.

“The Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Finance, has to review downward, most of the Nigeria Customs Service tariff bands, especially those that directly affect the lives of the Nigerian people as well as the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) policy, because it is at variance with Act 20 of 2003. It also encourages the smuggling of vehicles into Nigeria through the many Nigerian porous borders. Moreover, it has adversely affected Roro cargo traffic. Vehicle import is now on the decline. It has also thrown many agents out of job,” he said.