Importers, freight agents lament Apapa Customs’ continued server breakdown
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Customs Area Controller, Apapa Command, Comptroller Babatunde Olomu, who took over reins of power at the command Monday.
Importers and freight agents operating at the Apapa Port in Lagos, Nigeria’s premier port are currently counting their losses over the repeated and continued breakdown of the Customs Processing Centre CPC server for the Apapa command of the Nigeria Customs Service.
Recall that following the expiration of the Build, Own, Operate and Transfer BOOT contracts of the service providers under the Destination Inspection DI Scheme sometime in 2013, their facilities and structures were transferred to the Nigeria Customs Service while Webb Fontaine, which was part of the DI contracts was retained to provide backend support for the CPCs across all commands.
An importer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, lamented the worsening cases of the breakdown of the Apapa Customs’ server, especially in recent times, which has left several containers and other consignments trapped leading to payment of huge sums of money on demurrage to both terminal operators and shipping companies.
According to him, it is becoming unbearable to compel importers and their agents to pay avoidable demurrage charges on containers, which release was stalled by the repeated cases of the Apapa Customs’ server breakdown. He proposed a situation whereby accrued demurrage due to server breakdown should be waived on the affected containers.
He further argued that compelling importers and their agents to pay demurrage to shipping companies and terminal operators on containers that were delayed due to the breakdown of Apapa Customs server was double jeopardy and unfair since they are not the cause of the breakdown in the first place.
Another freight agent, who also pleaded anonymity, lamented that most containers could not be cleared since last week because of repeated and continuous breakdown of the Apapa Customs’ server.
He also disclosed that all through yesterday, Wednesday May 8, 2024, no container was processed or cleared as the server could not come up from the beginning to the close of work hours as the freight agents, who reported for work were seen gathered in groups around the CPC while waiting for the server to come up, which never did.
“The most painful aspect of this despicable situation is that nobody is saying anything while the agents while away their precious time waiting for the server to come from the beginning to the end of workday while the containers accrue demurrage.
“Apapa Customs continues to suffer system breakdown and nothing seems to be done about it. For more than one week, jobs could not be released, demurrage keeps pilling up, and no relief for people whose containers continue to dwell at the ports for no fault of theirs.
“Shipping companies’ charges and terminal free-period charges expire, the importers and their agents source for funds to pay, the server does not come up and we’re stranded because the containers are trapped, this is a most despicable situation.
“There should be efforts on the part of the Nigeria Customs Service to invest in its system’s backbone at least to improve delivery time instead of increasing delivery cost to the detriment of the importers and ultimately the Nigerian people, who are the final consumers of the products because the importers would pass down the additional cost to final consumers”, he argued.
Efforts to reach the Public Relations Officer of Apapa Customs Command, Abubakar Usman proved abortive, as he could neither take up calls put across to him nor respond to enquiries sent to him on the issue
Investigations show that these servers, which backend support is provided by Webb Fontaine across all the commands of the service have been experiencing continuous downtime, which causes delays in cargo delivery and ultimately leads to incurring huge sums of money on demurrage and rent charges and ultimately causes congestion on the long run.
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