Where are the ships?

Scarcity of foreign exchange and the global economic downturn have indeed started taking tolls on the marine side of the seaport business, as the number of oceangoing vessels bringing and taking import and export commodities in and out of the port continues to drop significantly, BusinessDay has discovered.

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) shipping position shows that only one vessel carrying 37,730 metric tons of premium motor spirit (PMS) was expected to berth at the Atlas Cove Jetty (ACJ) in Apapa, while few other vessels were expected to bring consignment into the port on the different date. But an eye witness account of a visit to the Apapa harbour on Friday reveals that the marine side of the nation’s foremost seaport, Apapa, was devoid of any vessel call, an observation that was the first of its kind, since after the seaport terminals were handed over to private terminal operators in 2016 on Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis.   

According to the account, the marine side of the notable ‘West African busiest container port’, operated by the Danish shipping conglomerate, APM Terminals, was idling away on that Friday morning till late afternoon without a single vessel call while two vessels were sighted at its neigbouring dry bulk terminal, known as ENL Consortium.

Here, almost all the berths in Apapa seaport were virtually un-occupied at the time of visit. At the APM Terminals, over 10 harbour cranes that were sighted at the quay wall were all seated un-utilised, as there was no single ship to discharge.    

“Our seaports are drying up gradually and I am not surprised that hour could pass by without a single ship being discharged at Apapa port, that handles close to 60 percent of the entire import and export cargoes that berth in Nigeria,” said Tony Anakebe, an industry analyst.

Continuing, he noted that the situation of low business in the nation’s seaport has gone beyond the issue of economic downturn to be the result of scarcity of foreign exchange, weak naira against dollar and cumbersome documentation process that makes Cotonou, a preferred destination for over 40 percent of Nigerian importers compared to Nigerian seaports.

“Cotonou seaport in Benin Republic has taken away most of our cargoes especially vehicles and rice. This is why smuggling is thriving and government needs to find a way around this to boost the economy and reduce smuggling,” he added.

Uzoamaka Anagor-Ewuzie