Shipping lines are reluctant to ferry out over 500,000 empty containers valued at N985 billion ($1.09 billion). The containers, litering the ports because of high cost of shipping, belong to Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), Hapag Lloyd, Safmarine, CGM CMA, Cosco among others. It was revealed that it would cost an average of $2,190 (N1.97 million) to freight an empty containers to Europe without cargoes. The liners rather than ship them back prefer to abandon them as 40 feet used in Apapa costs between $2,133 and $3, 900, while new 20 feet and 40 feet containers could be purchased at between $2,500 and $4,500 respectively.
Although, importers and freight agents have accused shipping lines of using container deposits to rip them off by turning the country into a dumping ground for expired containers. Explaining why containers are dumped, Customs Area Controller in charge of Kirikiri Lighter Terminal Command, Timi Bomordi, had said in Lagos that Nigerian importers paid for the two legs of shipping, noting that the cost of shipping in Nigeria was always higher than in Europe, Asia and America. He said: “It is usually so because Nigerian importers pay for the two legs of the shipping. If a container leaving Asia for Europe costs $1,000, the container knows that it is not going to come back empty. If they spent $1,000 going there, they will also get the money back coming because it will be laden. It won’t be empty.
“So, the utility value of the container is in two ways. But in Nigeria, 90 per cent of the time, it is not. The utility value of the box is one way because we are a net importing country. We import much more than we export. “What is the probability that a box that comes in with goods from Europe, Asia or America will go back with something? The probability is next to nothing. It is negative. So, the shipping companies are wise. They know that it cost them the same amount to fuel their vessels and bring these boxes here. So, who is going to pay for that? Who will pay for the empty boxes? They will tell the importers that they have to pay for the return and they charge the importers for two ways.” It would be recalled that Barr. Ebenezer Oladimeji had said that the practice of dumping expired containers was only peculiar to Nigeria as there was no standard policy or regulation to monitor the activities of the shipping lines on container quality in conformity with international best practices.
He explained that the 1972 Container Safety Convention (CSC), an instrument of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which outlines the regulation for testing, inspections, approval and maintenance of shipping containers had not been implemented in the country, stressing that absence of effective regulations at the seaports and poor road networks, were aiding the littering of Nigerian roads and streets with expired and damaged containers. Nevertheless, Oladimeji added that government should established foundry companies to recycle the containers, saying that it would generate revenue for government. In 2018, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) ordered shipping lines calling at the nation’s seaports to carry their empty boxes along in order to create space at the port terminals b ut the directives have not been fully obeyed as no concrete measures in place by the authority.
According to NPA, foreign shipping companies had been leaving large numbers of containers behind in the country compared to the numbers of containers that departed from the ports. It would be recalled last week that Maritime Police Command recovered 287 stolen empty containers belonging to Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and Maersk Nigeria Limited. The Assistant Inspector General of Police, Maritime Police Command, Susan U. Akem-Horsfall, disclosed that the command in the course of duty also intercepted a 40 feet container already cleared by the Apapa Command of the Nigeria Customs Service for wrong declaration. She added that there was connivance between clearing agents, terminals and shipping companies to release cargoes wrongly and shortchanging Federal Government of needed revenue.
