PHCN, CBN And Other Government Agencies Abandoned About 500 Equipment's Containers At Lagos Port

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said on Tuesday that about 500 containers belonging to federal and state government agencies have been abandoned at the ports. The Customs spokesman, Mr. Wale Adeniyi told the News Agency of Nigeria on telephone that about 250 of the containers were laden with PHCN’s power generation equipment.

“About 140 of such power equipment were abandoned at the Ports and Cargo Terminal in Tin Can Island port, while the remaining 110 containers were moved to Ikorodu Terminal as overtime cargoes. “The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources similarly abandoned 59 containers. “The Central Bank of Nigeria CBN has 25 containers of imports. Other agencies that abandoned their cargoes are the Delta Steel Mills (6 Containers). “The Ministry of Power and Steel (15 containers), the Ministry of Works (10 Containers) while other containers belong to the governments of Lagos, Rivers, Ondo and Delta states,” Adeniyi said.

Adeniyi said that some of the containers arrived the country as far back as 2006. The Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi had warned against the abandonment of containers in the ports by government agencies. Abdullahi said, during an inspection of the Ikorodu Terminal recently, that such act was against customs’ rules and regulations.

The Comptroller-General disclosed that Customs had obliged PHCN’s request to clear the containers from the overtime cargo list. He explained that 104 containers had been cleared from Ikorodu terminal in the last three months. “Enough is enough. We shall consider the act of abandoning government containers as economic sabotage, and we shall treat the perpetrators as such,” Abdullahi said.

The Ikorodu Terminal serves as the government warehouse for safe keeping overtime containers transferred from the various ports in Lagos.