| 7 days inside Cotonou
Port
By Emmanuel Mayah
Saturday, November 19, 2005
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•Main
entrance to Port Autonome de Cotonou
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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In Benin Republic, the country’s seaport, Port Autonome
de Cotonou is the highest revenue earner. Repositioned to
ambush an estimated CFA 204 billion (51 billion) per annum
from the Nigerian economy, the port is to the tiny West African
country what oil is to Nigeria. Indeed, until it became the
fattest cash cow, cotton was the country’s highest foreign
exchange earner.
Bereft of mineral deposits like crude oil, steel, gold or
bauxite, Benin had had for decades to tother along on miserable
state budgets that kept some of its most deserving civil servants
in queue for a motorcycle loan. But all that has changed,
and pretty well too, since the day Benin woke up and realised
it can re-engineer its economy. It did not only look inward,
it looked across the border at its giant neighbour Nigeria
with huge resources but catalogue of crippling woes.
Dazed by the fabled resources of its neighbour but scandalised
by daily tales of corruption, plunder of oil wealth, abandonment
of projects and a skewed bureaucracy that clogs the wheel
of everything, Benin must have decided to take an advantage
while the giant is still on her knees. Drawing from the experience
of others which shows that the best way to do business with
Nigerians is sell to them what they already have, the French-speaking
country had no problem coming up with something.
Not even the fact that Nigeria has eight seaports could discourage
Benin from selling the services of its only port to Nigerian
importers. As Saturday Sun discovered in an investigation
staggered over three trips to Cotonou, the success story of
how Benin turned Nigeria’s woes to her gains is etched
on every facet of that country’s national life. It actually
begins from the black market at Krake (Benin’s side
of Seme border) where at any given minute, a platoon of Nigeria
traders and businessmen, on their way to Cotonou, could be
found chasing available CFA currency with their loads of naira
notes.
Booty of an economic ambush
For anyone coming in from Nigeria, the 60 kilometer journey
from Krake, through Seme town, to Cotonou is actually a pleasure
ride. The six-lane highway that boasts of no noticeable crack,
let alone a pothole, is a window to a highly organised society.
Two additional lanes on Route de Porto Novo are restricted
with fancy aluminium works and serve motorbike riders and
paedestrians respectively. Given the glitter of the road,
one would be inclined to think that it was paved with gold.
Indeed, at the tollgate at Mivvo where the highway opens to
14 lanes, the Cotonou road actually looks like the tarmac
of an international airport.
Whether your destination is Dantokpa, Missebou, Jounquet,
Sekandji, Tankpe, St. Rita or Port Douane, the evidence of
Benin prosperity stares you in the face. The city oozes of
a new found affluence: from marble homes to glass houses sprouting
on well manicured landscape. True, some of the best houses
in Apapa Park Lane, Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Victoria Garden
City would look so ordinary if placed side by side to Cotonou’s
chateau.
In 2003 when this reporter visited Cotonou, work was in progress
on a second bridge across the Tokpa river in the city centre.
Since 2004 or late 2003, that bridge had been commissioned
in fulfillment of a well articulated urban planning. The long
and short of it is that in the eye of a long- suffering Nigerian
traveller, Cotonou is some kind of El Dorado. The system is
set in clockwork fashion: electricity supply is 24 hours,
so no one sells or buys generators. The taps run; the street
and traffic lights are modern, and the roundabouts expansive.
Here and there, construction works are going on and even from
a distance, it is clear enough that the engineering is carried
out with meticulous care.
It was gathered that the government of Benin is always counting
on customs revenue to help finance public spending. To this,
it has invested heavily on the seaport and road network, having
hugely based its economy on re-export or transit trade with
Nigeria. Again, having also elevated itself to a regional
port, Cotonou is today recognized as an access corridor, serving
not only Nigeria but Niger Republic and the eastern parts
of landlocked Mali and Bukina Faso. As a way of notching up
volume of transshipment trade, Cotonou has completed the asphalting
of the Savalou-Djougou and Natitingou-Porga highways and other
road construction projects.
For the ordinary traveler, it would be difficult to believe
that re-export trade is a major pillar of Benin’s massive
development projects. Saturday Sun gathered that the gains
from the port are ploughed into other sectors to boost employment
and private sector participation. Indeed, the multiplier is
evident. In place of motorbikes purchased on government loans,
the roads are crawling with sleek automobiles including the
most fashionable 4-wheel runner. The visitor can also see
that Small and Medium Enterprise is on the flourish as civil
servants resigns to find more rewarding engagements in other
areas including smuggling and transshipment services. Yes,
motorbikes are still there but mainly in commercial services
to augument a public transportation overstretched by the army
of Nigerian traders and businessmen that invade Cotonou on
a daily basis.
As the visitor spends more days in the city, other indicators
of a robust economy emerge. One significant area that Saturday
Sun discovered was the media. Aside the state owned daily
newspaper, La Nation, there are more than 20 privately-owned
newspapers in Cotonou. The national television station is
ORTB (Office des Radio Television du Benin), but there are
five private TV stations including LC2, Golfe TV, Canal 3
and Tele Carrefour. A fifth station only recently began operation.
It was gathered too that there are over 20 private radio stations
including Golfe FM which broadcasts via satellite to several
African countries.
Inside the ports complex
Given the strategic importance of Cotonou port to Benin’s
economy, the security around the port’s complex can
only best be imagined. Saturday Sun’s first trip to
the neighbouring country was essentially to assess the risk.
As Nigerians who live in Cotonou or regularly cross the border
on business would tell you, the reputation of Beninois gendarmes
was not built through acts of civility.
This reporter was told at the Seme border two years ago that
in 2000, a Nigerian Immigration officer who was in Cotonou
to make a brisk shopping, ended up in jail for seven months
after the vehicle he was travelling in defied the whistle
of the gendarmes to stop. Though he was not the driver, the
gendarmes claimed in court that the Nigerian officer had called
them names and indeed derided their country. Had this story
not been told this reporter by another Immigration officer
(names withheld) who indeed took turn to visit his colleague
in Cotonou jail, the story would have been hard to swallow.
What the reporter would see in the course of the investigation
rested any doubt about what the gendarmes were capable of.
For example, on Monday, 7 November, about 3 o’clock
in the afternoon, news reached Saturday Sun in Cotonou that
over seven Nigerian traders had been arrested for offences
muddled up in rapid-fire French. The gendarmes dragged them
to their office. There the men were seperated from the women,
stripped to their boxer shorts, made to sweep the premises
and to pay CFA10,000 each to regain their freedom.
A section of the Nigerian community was alerted, but such
an incidence was no news to them. As Nigerians cross to Benin
Republic to eke out a living; some as cart pushers (this reporter
actually saw some Nigerian load carriers around Air Gabon
office), barbers, spare-parts dealers, prostitutes or internet
fraudsters, the dignity of the Nigerian in Cotonou suffers
a slump while xenophobia is on the rise.
As it turned out, the headquarters of the gendarmes was on
a boulevard barely 400 meters from the port. A cluster of
security units could be found here and there, along the stretch
parallel to the port complex, from Avenue St. Michel to Hotel
du Port which has on the opposite side, the Embassy of Cuba.
On the first visit, Saturday Sun was able to establish the
necessary contacts who could assist him to penetrate the port
and possibly ferret out shipping documents. Fees were discussed,
but because the reporter’s French was practically non-existent,
the original idea of getting him to work inside the port was
thrown overboard. Actually the story sold to the Beninois
contacts was that the reporter was a University student doing
a comparetive study on shipping in the West African sub-region.
As it turned out, Beninois are great lovers of education and
would go to great length to ally with any scholarly pursuit.
In fact, their dedication to the assignment left the reporter
wallowing in guilt.
After weighing the odds, the reporter’s ‘friends’
agreed to take him to a freight fowarder who will be able
to fix a passe into the port. The custom agent turned out
to be not only a woman but a Nigerian! Married to a Beninois,
the woman and her husband (names witheld) have an office at
the Cantine Port Douane. What they do are clearing and fowarding,
transshipment and auxillary services. This woman also has
some drivers (Beninois and Nigerians) working under her.
They are the ‘suicide drivers’ whose job is to
move convoys of second-hand vehicles at break-neck speed across
the border from Cotonou to any address in Nigeria.
The woman’s fee was higher. It was not clear whether
she bought the university student story, but she didn’t
really care. She said the only way into the port was to get
a paper as a consignor. She would be my agent but not for
more than seven days. Money changed hands and this woman scribbled
for the reporter some names and acronymns that he must as
a matter of necessity commit to memory. The following week
when the passe was prepared, in the name of a genuine consignor
(names witheld), it was gathered that the document was actually
manufactured in Nigeria, and thereafter couriered to Cotonou.
Like the Berlin Wall
From the outside, the Cotonou port complex looks like the
Berlin wall. There are two entrances into the port depending
on where you are going to. Stationed outside each of the gates
are about four different security agencies including the police,
the port’s security arm, of course the gendarmes and
a unit from Direction de la prevention et de law protection
civile (Civil Defence Directorate).
Saturday Sun gathered that the port was built in 1965 to handle
2 million tonnes of cargo per annum. Today the port exceeds
3.8 million tonnes due largely to Nigeria bound cargoes. To
accommodate Nigerians, the Beninois government has began to
build a second deepwater seaport off the coast of Seme-Kpodji.
The French construction firm, Bouygues Group, is handing the
job. The project, valued at 105 billion CFA France (US $160
million) will encompass among others, the construction of
a 450 metre long quay, a 504 hectares storage area for containers,
a second-hand vehicles fleet area of 7.7 hectare and a 3 hectares
area for technical facilities.
Cantine Port Douane, where the clearing agent has her office,
is a cluster of small offices and business centres next to
buildings housing various governmental departments. Located
adjacent to the ports perimeter wall, it buzzes with clearing
agents, transit agents, aides, drivers waiting to be hired,
telephone operators and currency changers.
It would appear all of these people had been trained to identify
a Nigerian without the visitor as much as utter a word. Every
day, they spill out of their offices to a nearby tree-lined
street, from where they keep watch over the port’s entrance
and cautiously solicit new clients. Here too, one can find
some Nigerian middlemen, mostly former clearing agents who,
unable to find work anymore in Lagos, had joined in the exodus
to Cotonou. Some actually had tagged along after their old
clients moved their import businesses to Benin Republic. This
category of Nigerians have devised ways to be getting a piece
of the action. Essentially, they get a commission if they
introduce a client to their Beninois counterpart. Still others
bring in jobs from Nigeria, negotiate payments with the client
and then hand over the papers to the Beninois who will do
the job.
Notwithstanding the activities of this ilk of Nigerians, this
reporter found the front premises of Port Douane (Entrance
B) less boisterous than what it had been during his earlier
window-shopping visits in 2001 and 2003. Then, the port had
a section called Germanco that housed a used-car market. Outside
the port’s premises, a car accessory market had also
sprung up. It was said that Nigerians, disappointed upon coming
to Benin to find no ‘wharf rats’, had tutored
Beninois to make more profit by stripping imported second-hand
vehicles of some of their accessories before selling them.
The same accessories like car stereos, wheel cover, jacks,
wheel spanners, mirros, fenders and etcetera were thereafter
offered for sale to the car buyer at the gate. However, as
the crowd built up, and again to make rooms for more containers
inside, the Benin government transferred the used car business
from land adjacent to the port to an area called Sekandji
(outskirt of Cotonou) in an effort to ease traffic congestion.
Aside the names and acronyms earlier spelt out to be committed
to memory, there was no further dress rehearsals before Saturday
Sun walked through the gate into the port complex. The security
men waved the ‘consignor’ in with courtesy. The
passe issued to the reporter ironically had come about to
thwart unwholesome practices like cargo theft. The overwhelming
success experienced by the port managers had attracted overwhelming
challenges from fraudsters. Criminal elements believed to
be Nigerians had began intercepting bills of lading, especially
those sent through courier by individuals resident in Europe
or Asia to their families. Once intercepted, such goods are
cleared and sold off by thieves who smile away looking for
another shipping document to intercept.
To contain this, the Cotonou port authorities have insisted
that goods, other than those sent in by registered import-export
companies, must have a copy of the international passport
of the consignor (resident overseas) attached to the bill
of lading. It is more beautiful when the consignor is physically
present to clear his shipment. Saturday Sun was told that
the clearing agent had used a ‘transplanted’ passport
to get the reporter the passe. Since the reporter’s
role in the port was merely that of an observer, nobody therefore
used a microscope to see the slight differences in the documents
used to obtain the passe and the originals used for the clearing.
The “guichet unique”
Beginning from the very first office, as the reporter followed
the agent and her assistants from one room to another, it
began to get clear why the Cotonou port is considered among
the best in the region in terms of the speed at which cargo
is unloaded and cleared. So also did the incentives which
make importation through Benin less harrowing. Indeed, the
strategies developed by the Beninois to accelerate customs
clearing process and to undercut well-laid down policies (if
any) in Nigeria, is called “guichet unique”.
As the process revealed, there is none of the arbitrariness,
bribery and extortion that cast the port users in Nigeria
as enemies. Saturday Sun surprisingly discovered that the
process of clearing goods in Cotonou is as simple and straightfoward
as a friendly handshake. While the process of clearing a mere
20 foot container in Nigeria could drive a well-meaning importer
insane and indeed could take anything from 4 weeks to infinity,
clearing process in Cotonou takes between 24 to 48 hours unless
there is a complication like false declaration or financial
constraints on the part of the importer.
The process begins with the presentation of the bill of lading
(connaissment in French) by the clearing agent who must have
received same from his client, the consignor. This is immediately
run through the electronic manifest system for verification.
Here, one would check if his consignment has arrived. Because
the clearing agent was handling different papers for different
imports from different clients at the same time, this reporter
was able to follow the clearing of four different containers.
Again, the fact that the consignments did not all arrive on
the same day made the opportunity more ample.
With the bill of lading in her hand, the clearing agent already
knew the shipping company to go to. In this case, it was Dom
Trasco. Upon getting to this office, the bill of lading was
handed over in addition to the agent’s ID card, as well
as the international passport of the importer which must correspond
with the name on the bill of laden. Receipts of the goods
being shipped were also tendered.
Once satisfied with their verification, the shipping company
issued a paper called Exchange Bon-A-Delivery. Photocopies
of this were made and sent to the port authority and SOBEMAP.
In another case, the pre-shipment agent used was BIVAC (Bureau
Inspection Veritace Academie Consiquency). Based on their
certificate, the importer makes what is called a declaration
at the customs desk.
Saturday Sun observed that typing the declaration is the most
sensitive stage of clearing. Here, the woman paid meticulous
attention to every word. The first container was a 40-foot
container carrying four cars and personal effects while the
second, a 20-foot container had two cars and personal effects.
The importer was expected to declare not only the numbers
of cars in a container but also the chasis number of each
of the cars, the model and such other details. Each car must
come with its log book.
For goods inside cartons like jewelry, electrical appliances,
auto spare parts and etcetera, the importer also must list
the number of cartons in a container, the number of bales
of textile. The bales come in 25 kg and 50kg, so the importer
must list the number of bales that are 25kg or 50kg.
If the textile is used clothing, the importer must state the
quality: whether there are 1st grade or 2nd grade second-hand
material. Also the type of textile is stated; be they lace,
silk, brocade or jean. The inspection body fixes duties based
on the type and quality of consignment. For this reason, if
the importer has brought in biscuit, he must state whether
it is sugar or salt biscuit because sugar biscuit is more
expensive.
With the efficiency observed by this reporter, a false declaration
can hardly go undetected at the Cotonou port. It is only with
used tyres which are packed four in one that an importer can
try to pull a fast one. Saturday Sun saw that with tyres,
the inspectors can only do random checking, hardly able to
check each and every one if they are packed in fours or more.
However, every importer knows that it is cheaper to make correct
declarations. If a false declaration is discovered, the importer
runs the risk of having the concealed items confisticated
or face the costlier process of rectification.
The long room
To his surprise, Saturday Sun discovered that the customs
is the only uniformed agency the importer has to contend with.
There is no police interference in the inspection, no SSS,
no NDLEA, SON, Quarantine and the likes. Though incidents
of fake or substandard imports are almost unheard of, there
is that country’s equivalent of NAFDAC called, Direction
de I’Alimentation et de la Nutrition Appliquee. Then
there is the Direction des pharmacies that takes care of pharmaceutical
products control. By some means not very obvious, these agencies
vet the imports without necessarily coming in contact with
the importer.
The first thing the customs sees is the inspection certificate
issued by BIVAC. Essentially, the customs verifies whether
the import had arrived on C.I.F (Cost, Insurance and Freight)
or on F.O.B (Free on Board) in which case the importer pays
at destination, the duty as well as the cost of freight.
Saturday Sun observed that at Cotonou Port, there are two
types of bill of lading. One indicates shipment (consumassion)
by indigenous importers while the other (transit) identifies
imports by Nigerians or other nationals. S10 signifies Nigeria-bound
goods; S12 is for Burkina Faso while S14 is for Niger Republic
which in fact attracts the lowest tarrif. C is for goods meant
for Cotonou while C6, also for Cotonou, is for rebate, especially
goods imported by government departments.
As part of its shrewd drive for patronage, the Beninois offer
rebate to the Nigerian importer. This means that apart from
paying what is generally viewed as a healthy tariff system,
the Nigerian importer is further pampered with about 15 percent
tariff lesser than what is paid by his Beninois counterpart.
However, to protect the Beninois market, the Nigerian importer
must not sell his goods within the Benin territory; indeed,
he has only three days to get his cargoes across the border.
Once the customs duties have been paid, the importer or his
clearing agent is expected to wait for the Long Room number.
The wait may take anything from two to three hours. When the
number is issued, along with many others, the importer proceeds
to a hall called Magazine 7. He is required to quote the Long
Room number on every document thereafter.
The Cotonou Long Room is anything but long. Unlike the notorious
Long Rooms of the Apapa and Tin Can Island Port that have
given many importers the heart attack, that of the Cotonou
port is not dreaded by anybody. Described as a nightmare by
those unfortunate to have passed through any of them, the
Nigeiran Long Room parades over 13 desks, each representing
extortion, ‘settlement’, arbitrary levies and
unnecessary bottlenecks. Sadly, the Long Room job which is
something two or three people could handle between two and
three hours is manipulated to last between 10 and 25 days
on the average.
The surprise of this reporter is better imagined when it was
discovered that no importer is expected to stay more than
24 hours in the Cotonou Long Room. In fact, there is a penalty
for delay. To speed up the clearing process, any importer
found foot-dragging in the Long Room after 24 hours is fined
CFA 50,000 before his document can advance to the next stage.
At Magasine 7, you have combined inspectors, including the
Customs, the Ports Authority and SOBEMAP. Activities here
are essentially to compare notes and to fish out any discrepancy.
Satisfied with the final checks, photocopies of the documents
are forwarded to the storage area so that your container can
be identified and positioned for physical examination. The
importer is expected to pay some fee depending on the weight
of the container. Unlike in Nigeria, there is no hide-n-seek
with forklift drivers, no offers of bribe or too many cargoes
chasing just one forklift or crane.
Two representatives of the shipping company accompany the
Customs, ports officials and SOBEMAP to open the containers
for examination. Before the customs break open your container,
the importer or his clearing agent must have hired and kept
on standby trucks to evacuate his goods. For cars, the importer
must have got his drivers ready. Since cars inside containers
have their tyres removed before shipment, the tyres are fixed
back. For other goods, the container is sealed again after
inspection. The importer returns to Magazine 7. There he is
given a release note and an escort for the final journey of
the cargoes to the border. Finally, the customs issues an
exit visa. As the goods travel towards the border, it is a
serious offence to open a sealed container and attempt to
sell its contents in Benin market.
Surprisingly, even when they would neither be used nor sold
in Benin, the authorities there insist that transit vehicles
to Nigeria must obtain insurance and registration number before
they can be driven across the border. The Beninois police
is strict in enforcing this. Saturday Sun observed that IP
on the number plate is for Benin vehicles while VT signifies
vehicles bound for Nigeria or Niger Republic.
Though the tour of the Cotonou port was punctuated by two
days of public holiday, this reporter spent a total of seven
working days inside the port, during which the clearing agent
had cleared four different consignments. In Lagos, clearing
one container alone, within that time, would have been considered
a feat. In fact, for single-commodity imports like cars, it
is possible to get the container out in one day if the process
began early enough in the day.
Observations showed that part of the smooth and accelerated
process of the Cotonou port is the custom’s examination
of cargoes at the stacks before they are moved to their designated
bays. Also, the authorities regularly update its stock of
plants and equipment. Saturday Sun saw over 14 Hyster and
Terex cranes, six tow tractors, unspecified number of forklifts
and spreaders among others.
Indeed, as Benin Republic grow fat at the expense of the Nigerian
economy, the country’s authorities are sparing no cost
to keep the Nigerian importer happy while making Port Autonome
the most business-friendly in the sub-region. In sharp contrast
to Nigerian Ports, once described by a World Bank Group as
“perhaps the most uncertain business environment in
the world, the Cotonou Port is designed to encourage growth.
For sure, there are no conspiracy and bottlenecks to entangle
imports in demurrage.
Cotonou’s demurrage
In Cotonou, the demurrage begins to count seven days after
the goods have been unloaded from the ship. It is seven days
for vehicles and 14 days for textiles and other imports. For
cars inside containers, it is CFA 3,000 demurrage per day
and CFA 1,000 for vehicles not in a container. It is also
CFA 3,000 for other goods inside containers. Demurrage doubles
after every seven days and is so calculated until it equals
or even gets higher than the cost of the goods; in which case
the customs is at liberty to take over such goods.
Re-export, a fraudulent activity
Saturday Sun’s investigations revealed that re-export,
around which Benin Republic has hugely structured its economy,
is actually a partially fraudulent activity. It is based on
skirting the Nigerian protectionist policy and indeed target
goods prohibited in Nigeria or those that are very highly
taxed. Such goods are imported from Europe and Asia by import-export
companies (most of them Nigerian) based in Cotonou. The companies
are registered with the Benin Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Among the items imported through the Cotonou Port are rice,
wheat flour, textiles, second-hand clothing, second-hand cars
and tyres, sugar, spirits, tomatoes (tinned and paste) second-hand
fridges and air conditioning units, sorghum, vegetable oil
and frozen chicken. Others are footwears, cosmetics, medical
equipment, computer and telecommunication products. Though
Nigeria slapped a ban on the overland import of a wide variety
of goods from Benin, the list of items imported and trucked
to the Nigerian border, just 50 kilometer to the east, has
continued to increase. It is said that Cotonou handles some
350,000 second-hand vehicles imported from Europe into Nigeria
every year. It was further learnt that re-export trade is
different from transit trade. The latter makes sense and is
for landlocked countries like Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali.
With re-export, Nigeria, which has eight ports back home,
is simply renting the services of the Cotonou Port.
Information made available to Saturday Sun revealed that re-export
generated for the Benin economy 20 to 30 billion CFA Francs
in customs revenue between 1995 and 1997, representing 14
per cent of total budget revenue. Customs revenue shot up
from CFA 16.7 billion in 1994 to CFA 31.7 billion in 1997.
The Biafran connection
Tracing the origin of re-export, Saturday Sun gathered that
the practice dates back to the end of the 1960’s during
the Nigerian Civil War. Through this channel, considerable
goods were said to have been smuggled to the Biafran side.
In the past years, the dynamism of this trade has been greatly
modified. The import-export companies conduct their exchange
operations and obtain letter of credit from Cotonou banks.
The Nigerian importer does not only pay the Beninois custom
duties, he rents stores, warehouses on Benin border towns,
buys from parallel exchange markets and of course engages
the services of transshipment agents who are actually glorified
smugglers.
In what would amount to a double tragedy, goods imported by
Beninois and sold in their markets are snapped up by Nigerian
wholesalers and retailers. This category also smuggle their
wares through every possible mode and sell them in Nigerian
markets.
Treated like sheikhs
Beleaquered back home by ambiquous government policies and
an enduring regime of bribery, corruption, extortion, multiple
levies and harassment by a plethora of security agents, more
and more Nigerian importers find justification to join the
exodus to Cotonou where the Beninois are only to happy to
receive them.
Indeed, the footprints of Nigerian importers in Cotonou are
not only evident in the swashbuckling at the Cotonou Port
but by the VIP treatment accorded them by the country’s
bank chiefs and hoteliers. An enquiry by Saturday Sun revealed
that as new banks spring up to accommodate Benin’s fast
growing economy, banks like Carrefour des trios Banques, Banque
International Du Benin, ECO Bank, Societe Generale des Banques
du Benin and Banque Africaine pour le Development et le commerce
have designed special packages to woo Nigerian businessmen
who are more often treated like sheikhs. Similarly, hotels
like Hotel du Port, Hotel le 15 Janvier, Le Littorial Motel,
Hotel Miva and Hotel de Nations all reek of Nigerians and
Lebanese.
Ships too avoid Nigeria
Saturday Sun gathered that it is not only importers that are
avoiding Nigerian Ports. High shipping and clearing costs
and the general poor infrastructure have resulted in some
shipowners preferring to carry Nigeria-bound cargo to the
more efficient port of Cotonou from where they are transshipped
in leaky vessels to Nigeria.
Bureaucratic bottleneck has not only caused expensive delays
for ships, a lack of adequate facilities in the ports has
forced shipping companies to acquire their own landing and
loading gear, thus increasing shipping cost. The dangerous
dimension is better told by the news this week that due to
poor facilities, the last time a ship berth at Port Harcourt
Port was two years ago.
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