Apapa gridlock: Levy shipping firms on loaded containers, shippers tell FG

The Shippers Association of Lagos State have called on the Federal Government to compel shipping firms to pay for storing containers around Apapa in order to curb the influx of long vehicles with containers in the area.
The President, Shippers Association of Lagos State, Mr. Jonathan Nicol, spoke with our correspondent in Lagos over the weekend.
Nicol suggested that the shipping firms should be made to pay $1,000 for storing containers in Nigeria.
He said, “If we can deposit for containers that transport goods across the country, it is also proper for them pay $1,000 for storing the container in our land, causing huge traffic, claiming lives in the process. Government must ensure they have a holding bay where they keep their containers, which most of them have kicked against.”
Nicols alleged that most of the containers coming into Nigeria from Europe and Asia are old, leaking and rusted.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority, Hadiza Usman, had said that empty containers occupied 40 per cent of Lagos ports.
The NPA, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, the Nigerian Shippers Council and the Nigeria Customs Service, it was alleged, do not have a record of the number of empty containers in most of the terminals across the country.
A stakeholder, who pleaded anonymity, said, “The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, and Usman must direct the operators to publish weekly, the number of cargo, laden and empty containers at the ports.
Most of the operators are conniving with some unscrupulous NPA officials and shipping companies to keep the containers at their terminals, to create the impression that the ports are busy.”