Business
Nigerian ports: Progress and Purloining
A damning internal report last year by the Bureau of Public Procurement uncovered systematic corruption across all the country’s ports. Red tape remains the single biggest headache. In the Niger Delta’s Onne port, 74 signatures are required to clear a cargo, the report said.
Owners abandon cargo
According to the report, “There are just too many departments in the port. A few years ago there was a form for the fire brigade, then that disappeared.” “Now you need to get clearance from the bomb squad, on top of the intelligence services and the police. And believe me, if you don’t pay up, you won’t get clearance,” says one Lagos-based importer who claims soaring costs caused all his foreign clients to quit in recent years.
Insiders told The Africa Report exorbitant demurrage charges sometimes lead to owners abandoning their goods.
“It can be for the simplest thing, and your cargo will be delayed for weeks. It’s true, sometimes for weeks the port authorities will just tell you the server is down.
“If it gets to a point where it becomes overtime cargo, some people just cut their losses and leave the cargo,” the chief executive of a local company says. Equally worrying, according to the re- port, were signs of state monopoly. An investigation is underway in Onne port where “concessions have been given exclusively to Intels Nigeria Ltd as a terminal operator exclusively for all oil and gas sector imports.” Some see potential for progress.
Seven years ago, a frustrated Alhaji Sani relocated his import-export business from Apapa in Lagos to Benin’s Cotonou, frustrated with obsolete equipment and corruption. On a visit last year, he was struck by the improvements. “I decided to start doing business here again,” he says.
Copyright The Africa Report 2014
