By Godfrey Bivbere
NIGERIA’s export drive appears to be under serious threat from some criminal gangs that specialise in pilfering, diversion and stealing of goods meant for export on the route to the nation’s seaports.
The gangs are said to be working in collusion with some insiders in the export process value chain.
Investigation by Vanguard Maritime Report indicates that more than 10 incidences have been reported this year. Sources close to exporters’ agents at the ports who narrated the incidences, said that after loading the export cargoes in the containers from the warehouse, the gang which deploys trucking services belonging to them, would head for a designated location unknown to the exporter and the agent, where the key and the seal of the consignment are broken and part of the consignment stolen before heading to the port export terminal to discharge.
The first of the three incidents is that of Global Enterprise, which was said to have brought its consignment intact to the export warehouse but between the time the goods left the warehouse and when it was loaded on board the vessel, a sizeable quantity have been stolen.
Vanguard Maritime Report gathered that as a result of the incident, the firm lost huge revenue in that transaction as well as goodwill and repeat contract as the shortage was only noticed when the goods arrived at the destination port.
Efforts by Vanguard Maritime Report to speak with an official of Global Enterprise simply identified as Tope, proved abortive as his phone was switch off.
The second is a consignment in four 20 footer containers of Sesame Seed that was to be shipped to Dubai about two months ago from a warehouse around Coconut area of Lagos.
Investigation showed that the exporter lost about N12.04 million of the N42.6 million worth of consignments, as 430 bags out of the 1520 bags were discovered missing. Each bag, Vanguard Maritime Report, gathers is worth N28,000.
The freight forwarder to the exporter, Ama Ventures Limited, had contacted the trucker through a third party to move the containers to the port on March 9, 2020 and left the warehouse after verification of quantity and weight and loaded and departing on March 12, 2020.
The two trucks carried two containers each. But on April 4, 2020, the middle man between the freight forwarder and the trucker identified as Nonye, called the freight forwarder to say the trucker was requesting for change of port from Apapa for which N172,050.00 had already been spent to Tin-can, which the freight forwarder did at extra cost.
At this point suspicion had arisen and both the freight forwarder and a representative of the shipping line demanded to know where the trucks were after the change had been made. The representative of the shipping line, who acted as the tracker, later disclosed that the containers were at Ibadan.
On Sunday, April 12, 2020, the representative of the shipping line demanded all the documents to enable them move the consignment straight to the port but the freight forwarder and the shipping line insisted on re-inspecting to ascertain that the goods were intact.
On April 13, 2020 when the first container was inspected in the presence of men of Area B of the Nigeria Police Force, it was discovered that 111 bags were missing from the 380 bags in the container.
Vanguard Maritime Report gathered that on examination of the second container the next day, it was discovered that 104 bags were missing and another 105 was also discovered to be missing from the third container.
Opportunity to export
Efforts to examine the fourth container the day after proved abortive as the representative of the trucking company insisted that inspection must not take place. As a result, all parties were invited by the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, Area B but the trucker refused to show up and the case had to be transferred to Zone 2 after about a week.
As at the time of this report, the consignment is still held down at the Liliypond Terminal while the owners of the goods are losing revenue daily as the police kept going back and forth over the issue.
A source close to the freight forwarder further told Vanguard Maritime Report that the opportunity to export and earn the much needed foreign exchange for the country, has been thwarted while also expressing anxiety over the state of the consignment at the conclusion of the police investigation.
Meanwhile, when Vanguard Maritime Report contacted the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council, NSC, Hassan Bello, he advised any exporter facing such problem to get in touch with the Council.
