A renowned freight Forwarder, the Chairman of National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Apapa Chapter, Prince Eze Uchendu having applauded the Apapa Customs Command, under the watch of Comptroller Babatunde Olomu, still frowned at the operations carried out at the APMT.
While accessing the port and it's operations, Prince Uchendu said the APMT is the major challenges faced by the operators at port. In his words," it is quite regrettable that after 19years of operation in Nigeria, APMT do not have adequate machineries to carry out it's contractual obligation, they lack capacity and technicality, it takes APMT 5days or more to position a container for scanning, their inability to offer quality services as regards to scanning is hindering trade, it hinders revenue generation which he said affects the nations economy.
Still speaking," Their inability to load containers that have been duly examined and released by customs and other government agencies within 24hours is uncalled for, I'm of the opinion that Federal Government should set up a committee to access the performance of the APMT", Uchendu said.
Prince Uchendu suggested that by setting up committee, the critical stakeholders should be carried along in order to make input.
The key players in the industry, the freight forwarders, the licensed customs agent who patronize them on daily basis, stakeholders who are paying the money should be considered , they should have a thorough study of APMT in Nigeria. He question why APMT should be charging Nigerians on public holidays,
In his words, "Can you imagine that APMT are charging Nigerians demurrages on government approved public holidays, does it mean they are Federation under our Federation? Or they don't abide to the rule of law? Why should APMT charging Nigerians for services not rendered", he questioned.
Continuing," You book your container for examination, APMT will not be able to position your container on that particular day and will keep charging you for inefficiencies caused by them".
On the part of NPA, Prince Uchendu said that for some weeks now, NPA has been diverting vessels meant to berth in Apapa to other terminal due to incompetency of the terminal operators.
"On this note, I call on the management of the NPA, who is saddled with the responsibility of steaming containers to off dock terminal to sit up, if APMT a foreign firm are not prepared to live up to their contractual agreement, then the NPA who have the sole power to steam container to off dock terminal should sit up and do so to avoid Nigerian businessmen loose their investment because most money these importers use are borrowed from banks and interest are paid on daily basis to those banks", he lamented.
On E-Call up system, Prince Uchendu responded that "We are following the issue at the level of the joint association of freight forwarders, which for now we don't want to make any official statement on that, remember that on the 18th of March, i made a press release where I invited TTP and NPA, which he said yielded effort because after having a serious meeting with them, TTP officials trained their members and linked every participant into the E call-up platform.
Recall that the renowned freight Forwarder, Prince Uchendu, in his previous press briefing applauded comptroller Olomu in the area of trade Facilitation and Stakeholders engagement where he scored compt. Olomu 100 percent for his resilient, doggedness and listening ear giving to Stakeholders, having virtual meetings with them, created time to sit with the five chairmen of the accredited associations within the purview of Apapa Port, just to sample their opinion, and using most of the advices, the quarterly report of the command that declared a humongous sum of N694.1b as revenue generated for the Federal Government in the first Quarter of the year, 2025 , which according to Prince Uchendu is very commendable.
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