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As congestion at the Lagos ports continue, facts have emerged that more than 2,000 containers of overtime cargo littered in the facilities have currently taken up about 30 per cent of the space meant for ports operations.
This is coming at the backdrop of an ongoing disagreement among government agencies in the maritime industry over the best way to dispose the overtime cargo.
Speaking on the issue in Lagos during the visit of the team from the International Monetary Fund, IMF, General Manager of Ports and Terminal Multi-Services Limited, PTML, Tunde Keshiro, told the visiting team that one of the problems faced by the terminal is the 30 per cent space occupied by overtime cargo.
Keshiro noted that as a result of the space constraint they are forced to squeeze operations within the available space for the volume of consignments passing through the terminal.
He stated: “Space is the constraint we are having as a terminal operators; we now wait until there is space before we discharge, then we wait again until there is space for other operations. About 30 per cent of the space at the terminal is occupied by overtime cargo and it is disturbing.
“Most of the things impacting on our terminal are activities at the other terminals spilling into our operations. Trucks are not able to get access into their terminals, thus blocking our gates and preventing our trucks from getting access.
“That is what affects us. If you take that out of our operations, we are good because we are at the edge of the road. So from our terminal our customers are able to quickly enter the express road to go out and equally when they are coming in, they are quick to come in.
“We do not delay trucks outside for all trucks we are handling, be it for paper rail, be it for container delivery, we are able to immediately absorb them into the terminal to provide the services for them.”
