Foreign shipping lines are making a fortune from Nigeria as businesses coughed out $45 billion as freight charges between 2015 and 2019.
It is also expected that the charges would hit $60 billion as increases in charges were implemented in 2020 with a huge portion of the cost coming as premium on cargoes coming to Nigeria from War Risk insurance firms.
If indications are that War Risk Insurance (WRI) was removed from the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, figures, then the inclusion would have brought the total cost burden on Nigerian importers and exporters to the region of N32 trillion over the period.
The situation it is reported was the fallout of the collapse of the nation’s shipping line, the Nigerian National Shipping Line, NNSL, and the inability of the private sector to fill-in the gap.
Consequently, foreign shipping lines and cargo underwriters are said to have capitalized on the situation to impose freight charges and WRI most of which are only applicable to Nigerian cargoes.
The out-going Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council, NSC, Mr Hassan Bello, confirmed the situation and said that a total of 26,147 foreign vessels berthed at Nigerian ports with a dry cargo throughput of 372 million metric tonnes and total wet cargo throughput of 613 million metric tonnes.
With the benchmark of $92.5 per metric ton for dry cargo applied by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, the total freight for dry cargo for the period will be N16.3 trillion ($34 billion).
Also a benchmark freight rate of $18 per metric tonne for crude oil to Europe will accumulate a freight bill of N5.28 trillion ($11 billion) during the same period under review.
