New findings have shown that activities at Nigeria’ seaports have plunged significantly to about 40 per cent.
It was learnt that the federal government’s policies on importation of commodities in the country such as rice, fish and poultry products like frozen chicken and turkey have taken their toll on the operation of the nation’s seaports.
Sources have revealed that the ports that have incurred more losses are the break bulk and roll-on, roll-off (RoRo) terminals.
While the RoRo terminals were built with specialised equipment to handle vehicles, particularly used ones popularly called tokunbo or “Belgium” the bulk terminals were specially built to handle bulk cargoes such as wheat, rice, salt and sugar.
It was further learnt that other factors also contributing to the low volume of cargo are the implementation of the national auto policy, which has led to a significant drop in the volume vehicles imported into the country and the new Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy on foreign exchange.
Many importers now find it difficult to source foreign exchange to bring in their imported goods into the country, a development, which has reduced operations of these terminals to between 30 per cent and 40 percent capacity.
In addition, industry stakeholders attributed the low ports operation to reduction in the number of ships that call at the port due to the fall in the volume of imported cargo.
