Agents have blamed inadequate holding bays as the major reason for the hike in container transport costs, which have risen from N200,000 to about N1.1m, representing a 450 per cent surge in transport fares for containers, The PUNCH reports.
This is as the agents specifically mentioned Mediterranean Shipping Company as the major culprit, adding that the location of its other holding bays in distant Ijanikin and Agbara is fuelling the hike in transport fares.
The Africa Association of Professional Freight Forwarders and Logistics of Nigeria, in a statement on Thursday signed by its National President, Frank Ogunojemite, and obtained by The PUNCH, said the shipping line is frustrating port reforms, crippling trade facilitation, and subjecting importers to unjustified demurrage.
APFFLON has called on the Federal Government and relevant maritime regulatory agencies to immediately investigate and sanction MSC over what the association described as “its persistent failure to provide adequate facilities for the return of empty containers, a situation APFFLON says is contributing significantly to congestion within the Apapa Port corridor.”
“The continued refusal or inability of MSC to make sufficient holding bays and designated collection points available for empty containers has created unnecessary bottlenecks that frustrate cargo movement, delay truck turnaround time, and worsen traffic congestion around the nation’s busiest seaport. It has raised transport costs for moving containers by truck out of the ports to places like Ijora from N200,000 to over N700,000,” the group said.
