Lagos port manager Olotu harps on exports facilitation
Port Manager, Lagos Port Complex, Mrs. Funmilayo Olotu, has emphasised the need for Nigeria to facilitate export in other to earn more foreign exchange.
Olotu, who disclosed this in Lagos said the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has designated the Lilypond Container Terminal as the final processing centre for all export cargoes coming into the Lagos Port Complex.
She urged the truck owners to facilitate the movement of export cargoes into the ports without delay.
Olotu said the Nigeria Customs Service and other agencies of government would be informed of the take-off date of processing at Lilypond terminal, noting that a lot of renovations are ongoing at the terminal.
She said, “Whatever is done and sealed at the terminal can now approach the port without any stoppage along the port corridor, it’s just for the containers to come into the port and go directly onto the vessels.
“When we are import dependent nation, it is not building up our economy, it is when we are able to export our goods and they reach the destination in the right quality and quantity that we can begin to compete effectively among ports in the subregion.
“So, we are all here to ensure that the necessary platform is given for everybody to do the right thing and for Nigeria not to attract any negative comment anymore but for us to be able to stand on the core values of the federal government.”
Olotu decried the attitude of some truck drivers who she said are frustrating the NPA’s effort to ensure that export goods do not only get to the port on time but are delivered in right quality and quantity.
According to her, rather than approach the port directly, the truck drivers now hang around the port corridor looking for more businesses and Terminal Delivery Orders (TDO).
“For the export, we are having a present challenge whereby trucks loaded with export goods, on getting to creek road in Apapa, they start turning for TDO’s and refusing to come into the ports.
“For those who are not aware, they would say it is the customs keeping them, but this is not true. Everything has been concluded, but these people are now looking for a two-in-one transaction.
“You would see them hanging around port corridors, we have used enforcement on them severally,” she said.
