NSC to clamp down on shipping company’s without holding bays

The Nigerian Ship­pers’ Council (NSC) said it will soon begin to clamp down on shipping compa­nies without truck holding bays to help decongest port access roads.

The move is aimed at en­suring seamless ship­ping operations within the nation’s maritime do­main, reports www.odogwublog.com .

The decision may have been necessitated by the fact that all the port access roads in Apapa are burdened with traffic gridlock as container trucks and tankers litter the port city, causing hellish traf­fic snarl on a daily basis.

The NSC, which doubles as the Port Economic Regulator, had for long advised the ship­ping companies to provide holding bays for empty con­tainers, threatening that fail­ure to heed the advice would lead to their being barred from the maritime industry.

The move has sent jitters down the spines of those with­out the facility as the 2015 deadline ends soon.

Recall that at a recent meet­ing between the Economic Management Team of Presi­dent Goodluck Jonathan and maritime stakeholders in Apapa, Lagos, the Director of Commercial Shipping Ser­vices of NSC, Mrs. Dabney Shal-Holma, lamented that shipping companies operating at the port do not have pro­visions for holding bays for empty containers and that this has been responsible for the congestion and traffic grid­lock at the port.

She therefore warned that “any shipping company that does not have holding bay by 2015 will not be allowed to operate in the industry.”

According to her, a situation where truck owners queue up endlessly along major roads leading to the port in order to drop empty containers will no longer be acceptable.

She also said there was need for shipping companies to build holding bays with an effective call-up system for trucks accessing the port to pick or drop containers.

The Shippers’ Council di­rector also called on maritime truck owners to ensure they register their trucks under one company, to make it easy for the council to control trucks accessing the port.

Shal-Holma noted that individual ownership and operation of maritime trucks would not allow policies and government directives to be well-implemented, except they are all organised under one company.

She said the council was already working with the As­sociation of Maritime Truck Owners (AMARTO) and its consultant, Mr. Chris Orode, as well as other international consultants and will soon roll out fresh plans on movement of trucks at the nation’s port.

The NSC director also la­mented that the petroleum tank farms operating inside the Ibru Complex also do not have provision for a holding bay and a call-up system.

Shal-Holma noted that some multinational compa­nies operating inside the com­plex have holding bays and a good call-up system, but that many of them have since dis­carded the system because of the disorganised nature of the axis.

According to her, the Ibru Complex accounts for 60 per cent of the traffic gridlock along the Coconut and Tin Can Port Road.

The Sun newspaper