Nigerian Navy, Police, Civil Defence, others frustrating ship chandling — NLSCA

THE president of the Nigerian Licensed Ship Chandlers Association (NLSCA) Dr. Martins Enebeli, has accused officials of the Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Police Force (NPF), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Nigerian Immigration Service and others of frustrating ship chandling in Nigeria, thereby costing the nation huge revenue.

Speaking with newsmen recently, Mr. Enebeli explained that the activities of these security agencies makes access to vessel via the waterways almost impossible.

According to the NLSCA president, “The practice of ship chandling connotes international operations and time is of essence when you are carrying out ship chandling activities vis a- vis supplies to ships which includes victuals, oils, services, lubricant and supplies.

“In Nigeria, things are not done properly so we cannot compete effectively. We control about 65 percent of ship operations within the West African sub-region, and most of these ships that come into our harbours are fully laden with cargo while they go out mostly imballast. This enables us to have a balance of trade in all the bi-lateral and multi-lateral trade agreements we have entered but they are not implementable because of the turnaround time because the constraints are enormous.

“Accessibility to the port, particularly the Lagos port, is almost impossible through roads. Also, accessibility to the ship through the waterways is almost impossible because of the proliferation of security agencies and their illegal approvals.

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“The Nigeria Customs Service regulates ship chandling practice in Nigeria and after giving you approval, other agencies like Navy, Police, Civil Defence, Immigration, etc will still proliferate the approvals. Sometimes, you stay as long as two hours with vegetables that meant for consumption on an international vessel with an international benchmark for which health is of essence. By the time of arrival after all these bureaucracies, the receivers of the consignments will reject them on health grounds because they have overstayed, stale and infected.

“All facets of ship chandling activities are affected in the Nigerian system. We have in the past written a lot of memorandums to this effect but as usual, we have only had talk shows, nothing comes out of them. All the vessels go out imballast ranging from the cabotage-coastal, coast-wise and the Gulf of Guinea.

“In international operations, Nigerians cannot fit in because of the logistical problems, so revenues are lost. Ideally, you would be having about 15 crew members on the smallest vessel and to set sail for thirty days, it needs an average of about a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of victuals, oil, water etc.

“Why will a chandler, after getting approval from the Customs, still wait to get approvals from the Navy, Immigration, Civil Defence and the Police which has 20 units on the same product? By the time you go round all these people, it is a pity, the ship must have gone. Some of these vessels are on time charter. Their turnaround time is in hours, so Nigeria is never suitable for them. That is why they are all in Ghana, Togo, Republic of Benin and Côte d’Ivoire.”

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