By Eso Onwuji
Sir: In my 20 years study of the KLT Customs Area Command, I observed that the command is not justifying the Federal Government resources allocated to it, instead of being port economy facilitator. Despite its large landmark, available space and inland waterway facilities to support mother ports, it has been 98 per cent idle on yearly basis for the past 20 years. What an economy!
This command parades not less than 120 officers with full fledged port hierarchy and maintains similar offices and facilities, yet without results. In fact, the land space is bigger than Tincan Island Port; hence, if Tincan is generating average of N100 billion monthly, KLT Area Command with space capacity of Phase 1, 2, 3, 4 and with over 10 Bonded Terminals outside KLT, should not be struggling to generate N3 billion monthly.
I believe the Ministry of Finance could easily confirm this from the command’s monthly returns for the past 20 years. If the command is being maintained with the same salary and emoluments like other ports yet not efficient, it should be a matter of urgency for the Ministry to scrap KLT Customs Area Command and match all Bonded Terminals under it with Tincan Island and Apapa Ports Customs Area Commands, for efficiency.
Beside the seeming idleness of the command, the issue of consistent port congestion in Lagos, port inefficiency, high cost of operations and high cargoes dwelling periods could be directly linked to the redundancy of the KLT Command.
Some of the actors behind this evil may argue that non-transfer of cargoes to KLT Command is because of additional cost; but the cost of port congestion, customers’ delay in accessing their cargoes, high cost of demurrages and delay in ship berthing is 10 times costlier than the cost of moving cargoes to KLT Command. In short, that is why mother ports are over-stretched and with high inefficiency.
In the nearby Cotonou Port, whenever vessel berths, cargoes are moved directly to terminals outside the port, while limited cargoes remain in the port, so that vessel berthing delay time is reduced to the barest minimum. Cargoes are distributed to terminals for easy access and clearance for the importers’ agents.
The three major reasons the KLT Customs Area Command remains inefficient and redundant include:
Refusal of the mother ports to release cargoes to KLT.
With my experience for the past 20 years, Apapa and Tincan Island Ports Customs area commands have been reluctant to move cargoes to the KLT Area Commands except the few terminals under their commands with the excuse of losing their revenue.
I wonder if the revenue collected is for Apapa and Tincan Island Ports Customs area commands or the federation account? This corruption must stop. The authority in charge of these commands should be educated that these revenues could be efficiently achieved if cargoes are distributed, congestion will reduce, Customers will have easy access to their cargoes without delay and huge cost been paid on demurrages.
I see the complacence of all officers in the KLT Area Command as another factor. This may be as a result of their salaries and emoluments being paid as and when due, whether they work or not. No private investor will allow idle units of its branches to exit without output.
The area has been managed by officers who did not care if they are working or not because they behave as if nothing is missing. They are less contributing to the port operations and yet supervising idle bonded terminals without considering that they are privately funded and without grant from the Federal Government. No wonder terminals under them are dying daily.
Inaction of Customs authorities.
It is now a culture for all serving heads of Customs since 20 years ago to always turn away their eyes to this problem. It seems deliberate or beyond them or failure of the system. Who will correct this abnormality? I learnt that petitions and complaints have never been addressed for the past 20 years. It is my opinion that the Customs authorities are aware that the Customs is one of means of ease of doing business.
No matter how you deploy computer technology, as the way port is being managed without efficient cargoes distribution, ease of doing business in the port can never be achieved. Technology cannot work in isolation; visit foreign ports that are efficient you will observe that cargoes are being spread to avoid congestion and accessibility difficulties.
The head of Customs cannot pretends that they are not aware of this problem in the KLT Customs Area Command because they have the records of the revenue generated monthly compared with other ports, port congestion while the Command is idle and the cost of running the system without productivity.
In conclusion, as a concerned Nigerian, 20 years of waste is no longer acceptable, especially for this government that is seen reversing inefficiency of many decades, I wish to suggest to the Minister of Finance that this idle Customs Command be immediately scrapped and bonded terminals under it repositioned to serve Apapa and Tincan Isand ports, or the Customs systems in the ports be immediately restructured to accommodate KLT Customs Area Command and Terminals, in port support functions and ease of doing ports business in Nigeria.
Eso Onwuji wrote in from Lagos.
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