The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) announced a ten-day suspension of the services of Maersk Line, Cosco Shipping, APS and Lansal. These companies did not comply with the requirement by NPA which said that companies must acquire and operate holding bays. The suspension took effect from Saturday, July 14th.
In November, 2017, an agreement was reached between the NPA, Shipping Companies and Terminal Operators to provide holding bays for their containers through the newly adopted Call-Up system for trucks.
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The suspension of these companies, comes after NPA conducted checks in which it discovered that the companies did not comply with the directive to acquire and operate holding bays. They also failed to utilize their holding bays at all or do not have enough capacity to handle the volume of containers that they deal with. Some of these companies have also been found to import a larger number of containers than empty containers exported.
When the suspension expires, NPA will review the level of their compliance to its directives.
These incidents are happening because of the congestion around the Lagos Port Complex (LPC) and the Tin Can Island Port (TCIP). This situation spread to other parts of Lagos where truck drivers with no immediate business at the ports now park their trucks on the express roads.
Finally, NPA said again that the planned introduction of a new service charge called ‘Empty positioning fee’ by shipping lines is illegal.
