New Telegraph

Stranded exports: FG should designate Onne as export port –Experts

At a time Nigeria was in dire need of foreign exchange as revenue from crude oil falls, over 100,000 export cocoa stranded at the ports is a disincentive to the economy. PAUL OGBUOKIRI reports

 

For Nigeria to end the reoccurring problem to exports, particularly cocoa, cashew been stranded at the ports, maritime industry experts has stressed the need for one of the ports in East to be designated as export port.

 

This came at least 100,000 tons of cocoa beans are trapped at the Lagos ports and it is taking an average of 40 days to get necessary approvals from the Central Bank of Nigeria that meets shipping requirements, Pius Ayodele president the Cocoa Exporters Association of Nigeria said.

 

According to the National Coordinator of Save Nigeria Freight Forwarders, Importers and Exporters Coalition (SNFFIEC) Dr. Osita Patrick Chukwu, the hiccups at the Lagos ports occasioned by gridlock has made it necessary for an exclusive port for export, saying processing of export documentation will be easier.

 

He further called on the Central Bank to stop introducing disruptive policies that add to the existing problems of gridlock in the port, saying extortion by operatives of the Presidential Task Force Team on Port Decongestion has worsened the problem of decongestion which they were brought in to solve.

 

The Central Bank had suspended shipments for two weeks to verify compliance with rules for returns of proceeds, Victor Iyamah, an exporter and former president of Cocoa Association of Nigeria, told Bloomberg. “We have five containers at the ports, some of which have left the factory for well over two months now.”

 

A plunge in oil prices has led to dollar shortages in Africa’s largest crude producer and a 28 per cent differential between the official and parallel markets, creating an incentive for exporters to divert proceeds to unofficial channels.

 

The additional documentation requirements, which CBN is asking shipping lines to enforce, is to track all exports and ensure proceeds are brought through official channels.

 

“Cocoa exporters are not against the new rule,” Kunle Ayoade managing director of Agrotraders Ltd., a cocoa exporting company, said. “What is cumbersome is asking shipping lines to enforce compliance that is better done with pre-shipment inspection agents and not shipping lines or terminal operators.”

 

Speaking, Mr. Lucky Amiwero, President of Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (CMDLCA) disclosed that the disruption in cocoa and other non-oil exports will worsen foreign-exchange shortage in the country and impede the government’s efforts to diversify the economy away from its dependence on oil, the country’s main export. Nigeria ranks fifth among the world’s top cocoa producers, with its 2020-21 output estimated to reach 270,000 tons by the cocoa association.

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