Pastor Ambrose Obioma Okehi, the Publisher of the Emperor Newspaper at the town hall meetings on Revising of Private Bonded Terminals Operations in Nigeria called on the federal government to look into:
1 Government can start using these private bonded terminals that litter the state of Lagos as holding bays for empty containers.
2 That the spaces at these private bonded terminals can serve as holding bays for export purposes.
3 That the concessionaires can from today decide to accommodate fellow business men and women by working as partners in progress
The Town Hall Meeting was organized by the True Witness Communication and Media Services, the Publishers of Emperor Newspaper in an effort to revitalization the pivot of the problem in accessing roads to seaports within Apapa areas in Lagos.
The publisher said this in his speech at Rockview hotel Apapa that for us at True Witness Communication and Media Services, the Publishers of Emperor Newspaper, it is a new dawn, it is time to do something and we can achieve result if these vital suggestions mentioned above.
Pastor Okehi pointed out that private bonded terminal operation is not just a Nigerian thing, neither is it an illegal activity not a localized operation, no it is an internationally recoqnised business.
He further said the pioneer bonded terminal includes: Mid Maritime, Port Express, etc before others later joined. When they started in the 80s they were called bonded warehouse but today they had gone through a lot of transformation and rebranding to get to were they are at the moment. Some years ago, this group of investors who have invested their hard earned resources in the business had once or twice came to the rescue of Nigeria during difficult times likes the era of cement armada and that of port congestion. Within this period, they were found worthy allies. In fact, it was way back in the 80s and 90s that the federal government found this same group of indigenous investors (bonded terminal owners) why doing business of this aspect of business.
It was on this note that they were asked to invest their resources. It was also on this agreement that they started to build terminal here and there, it was also on this basis that they were licensed to operate by the Nigerian Customs Service and Nigerian Ports Authority. Business was moving at the beginning, and things were going as planned.
But regrettably, the situation has indeed turned sore, everything has gone wrong, things are not more the way they should be, the MoU they signed with the federal government was jettisoned almost immediately after port concession. All indications point out that they have been deliberately sidelined. All these anomalies in the port reforms programme have been hitting back at the Nigerian public.
Today, we are all witness to the outcome of the exercise in the last seven years. Our ports today are the costliest when compared with other nations. The ports are so congested and the heavy traffic on our access roads is telling on us even with the Executive Order On Ease of Doing Business (EODB) in Nigeria.
