Stakeholders blame inadequate logistics supply for congestion at TICT

The congestion of un-cleared containers at the Tin-Can Island Container Terminal (TICT) has been blamed on limited space and lack of sufficient trucks to transport containers from the stacking areas to the scanning site in the terminal.

According to stakeholders who took turns to appraise the issue, the congestion, which has made it very cumbersome for importers to clear and take delivery of their consignment, could have been averted if the terminal operator had provided sufficient trucks to move about 400 containers to the scanning site on daily basis.

Even though Cotecna, which is the destination inspection service provider responsible for carrying out risk assessment of imported containers at the terminal, says it has the capacity to scan about 400 containers every day, findings have shown that TICT currently moves an average of 150-200 containers daily as against 400 containers.

Confirming this, Zakari Jibrin, Customs area controller, Tin-Can Island Port Command, while addressing newsmen recently in his office, said the congestion is caused by inadequate supply of containers to the scanning site.

“Cotecna has told us that they can scan up to 400 containers in a day, but the terminal operator only makes 200 or less available because the trucks are inadequate. They have not allowed us to test the true capacity of Cotecna by supplying them with 400,” he said.

Idris Umar, minister of transport, while touring the port, bemoaned the slow process of transferring container by the terminal operator. He also expressed worry over the incessant server breakdown at the terminal, which has helped in compounding the problem of cargo clearing at TICT.

The minister further said the congestion problem could have been averted if the delay associated with feeding the scanning facilities with containers had been avoided.

BusinessDay checks show that TICT, like other terminal operators, undertakes the responsibility of transferring containers to the scanning site of Cotecna. Also, TICT has a lot of containers with limited space because empty containers have taken over most of the available spaces.

However, the problem is being taking care of as the terminal operator has started transferring excess containers to off-dock facilities to create more stacking space.

Reacting to this, the management of Cotecna through its spokesperson, Aminu Mohammed, said the capacity of the scanners at Tin-Can Port is grossly underutilised.

According to him, the daily capacity of the 9.0 MeV fixed scanner at Tin-Can Ashaye is 400 boxes and the mobile scanner at Tin-Can RoRo is 360 boxes, but the company has since September been doing daily average of 185 and 108 for the two sites, respectively.

Meanwhile, as a short-term panacea to the build-up of cargoes, Cotecna has commenced collaboration plans with Ports and Cargo terminal company by granting the latter space at the Cotecna Tin-Can Ro-Ro scanner sites to stack containers close to the equipment with a view to facilitating scanning activities.

This action by Cotecna, which stakeholders say will boost current effort at achieving trade facilitation in the port, is expected to accommodate over 250 TEUs per day positioned and ready for scanning.

By: Uzoamaka Anagor