The task force, headed by Assistant Comptroller-General of Customs, Nathaniel Iheanacho, has representatives of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Shippers' Council (NSC), the terminal operators and the police.
President Umaru Yar'Adua had given a 60-day ultimatum to the Minister of Transport, Ibrahim Bio, and Minister of Finance, Dr. Mukhtar Mansur, to ensure that the Lagos ports are cleared of congestion.
According to the National Public Relations Officer of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Wale Adeniyi, the decision to move the containers was reached after a meeting held by the NSC, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the terminal operators and other stakeholders in Lagos on Saturday. At the meeting was the acting Comptroller-General of Customs, Dr. Bernard-Shaw Nwadialor, and NPA Managing Director, Malam Abdul Salam Mohammed.
Adeniyi said the containers would be moved to the Ikorodu Terminal and other bonded terminals in Lagos where there are enough storage facilities.
There are worries that it would be difficult to move all the containers in good time because they would be moved through the already deplorable roads network.
But Adeniyi explained that all logistics had been put in place for transporting the containers hitch-free, with guarantee by NPA, adding that a special procedure that would both be shorter and faster would be adopted in moving the containers, saying that clearance would be based on the e-payment system.
The customs spokesman further said the containers would be moved amid heavy escorts and tight security by both customs officers and the police.
He, however, explained that most of the containers had discrepancies, which would be sorted out if their owners and the customs agents could come up to clear them.
Adeniyi also said government in its magnanimity had decided that rather than seizing the containers, it would give concessions to the owners to clear them.
"This is a concession that government has granted the importers to give the Lagos ports a fresh breath," he said.
Meanwhile, Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Mazi Jetson Nwankwo, has said provision of rail networks within the ports is the only permanent solution to the recurring congestions in the country's port system.
According to Nwankwo, several stakeholders' meetings had been held and presidential committees set up over port congestions before and after concessioning of the ports, yet the problem persists.
He, therefore, said the only solution is the reactivation of the existing rail networks in all the ports and their extension to other ports.
"With this in place several containers could be moved at once to Inland Container Depots (ICDs), where customs could conduct the 100 per cent examination and other necessary documentations without delay," he said.
He recalled situations in the past when, at the Apapa and Port Harcourt port complexes, train were loaded with cargoes directly from the ships and immediately moved to their destinations in the hinterland.
According to him, the corporation still has the capacity to do the same, adding that the corporation could also make land available to concessionaires for stacking their containers.
He also warned that no ICD could function effectively without rail lines linking it to the main line.
In similar vein, Chairman, Apapa Chapter One of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), John Ofobike, recently raised alarm that many containers that had been cleared by relevant government agencies were still laying at the ports because there are no trucks to pick them.
"It is very difficult to get a truck. "Sometimes for three days you will search for truck to get one because all of them have been booked to freight empty containers," Ofobike told the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mallam Abdul Salam Mohammed, who visited APM Terminals last Friday to assess progress of work aimed at decongesting the port.
Managing Director of APM Terminals Apapa Limited, Michael Lund Hansen, also told the NPA boss that his company has sufficient equipment to discharge and position containers for customs examination.
"We position containers for examination on request from agents and customs. We position more than 500 containers everyday for customs examination, but unfortunately we have to return most of them to the stacking areas at the end of every working day," Hansen said.
He said agents were not coming forward to clear their containers, adding that APM Terminals have 9,741 containers in the port for delivery to the importers. He disclosed that there are 851 containers that had been cleared by customs, all charges paid, documentation completed, but are still not picked up by agents.
Comptroller, Apapa Area One Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Comptroller Hannatu Sulaiman, who accompanied the NPA boss, disclosed that customs personnel have been able to examine only 120 of the 500 containers that are positioned by APMT.
She said most of the containers have to be physically examined by the customs, allegedly because of the high cases of concealment and false declaration by Nigerian importers.
