The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) 100% Compliance Team has suspended its planned strike, following an agreement with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Maritime Police Command to end the controversial blockage of containers at Nigerian ports.
National Coordinator of the NAGAFF 100% Compliance Team, Alhaji Ibrahim Tanko, announced the suspension at a press briefing at the association’s office in Apapa, Lagos.
The decision followed a stakeholders’ meeting on August 27 at the NPA headquarters in Marina, Lagos, where representatives of the NPA, Maritime Police Command, Department of State Services (DSS), NAGAFF and other stakeholders discussed complaints by freight forwarders over cargo delays and the alleged arbitrary blockage of containers.
The major concern raised by NAGAFF was the continued blocking of containers by the Maritime Police even after such consignments had undergone Customs processes and were cleared for release.
Tanko said the practice had subjected freight forwarders and cargo owners to unnecessary delays and additional costs, particularly where containers were blocked without specific intelligence linking them to infractions.
He said while security agencies had a responsibility to act on credible intelligence, there should be no blockage of containers merely on suspicion that they might contain undeclared goods.
‘There is no way you can tell me all the ships and manifests are suspected to carry another thing. The whole container coming into the country cannot be under investigation,’ Tanko said.
He explained that the meeting with the NPA provided clearer guidelines on how intelligence-led interventions should be handled within the ports.
Tanko disclosed that the NPA management informed stakeholders that the Federal Government had directed that there should be zero blockage of containers by the Maritime Police.
Under the new arrangement, he explained, where intelligence indicates that a container requires further investigation, the matter should be referred to the appropriate government agency, rather than the police independently blocking the cargo.
He said Customs-related matters should be handled by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), while consignments suspected to contain narcotics should be referred to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
Tanko identified three major resolutions reached at the meeting, including the decision to ensure zero blockage of containers by the Maritime Police, the referral of intelligence-led holds to the Nigeria Customs Service for appropriate action, and moves to reduce the number of government agencies physically operating within the ports to five as part of efforts to improve trade facilitation and ease of doing business.
He said agencies such as the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) would, under the proposed arrangement, only access the ports when their specialised intervention was required.