Nigerian Ports loosing out to Benin Port of Cotonou

Benin’s port of Cotonou which is a potential gateway to landlocked countries in West Africa is emerging as one of the alternative and potential port of call for the shipping fraternity in West African maritime trade lane. This comes in the wake of the increased vessels’ dwell time caused by ever increasing congestion in the Nigerian main ports of Apapa and Tincan.

It is noted that the average clearance time for containerized cargo in Nigeria has increased up to 21 days (three weeks) causing unnecessary high demurrage and storage costs which has also impacted negatively on the ship’s turnaround time, making the liners to impose congestion surcharges. In other neighboring ports of Ghana, Benin and Togo, importers spend an average of seven days to take delivery of their cargoes.

Maritime analysts in Nigeria say that this trend has much been attributed to cargo clearance bottlenecks, such as time-consuming manual documentation processes which takes up the bulk of the time involved in cargo clearance. This has seen massive diversion of cargo by shippers from the country’s ports of call to other ports in the region, thus resulting to loss of business for the ports, investors in the port industry as well as loss of revenue on the part  of the government.

Most shippers and importers prefer to use ports that are more user-friendly, efficient and cost-effective when it comes to cargo handling. The cargo clearance processes which proves to be more efficient and cost-effective will work towards stimulating the growth of the port industry, as well as accumulate revenue for the government.

In Benin Port of Cotonou, General Manager of RORO Terminal, confirms that it takes an average of seven (7) days to clear a container and one day (24 hours) for a motor vehicle. The set target is to reduce the container dwell time to one day so as to enable importers make faster delivery once the vessel docks.

The Cargo clearance process in Benin Port of Cotonou has improved due to government's port reforms in 2011. The reforms saw the introduction of a single online port clearance portal, known as SEGUB whereby all the documentation processes are just a click away at the comfort of shipper's desk.

This has led to decongestion at the Port of Cotonou, increased vessel turnaround time, and enhanced Corridor’s efficiency thus resulting to higher cargo volume.

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