Nigerian Shippers’ Council is not pleased with double stacking of containers aboard barges on the Lagos pilotage districts by operators.
Executive Secretary of NSC, Hassan Bello, disclosed this during a meeting with Barge Operators Association of Nigeria in Lagos on Friday.
He stressed the need for government to enforce the Cabotage Act to further protect the interest of indigenous barge operators in the country.
According to Bello, barge operation has come to stay in maritime activities, even as he harped on the need for the bargers to ensure that they register with the port economic regulators to ensure a level-playing ground in the transportation business.
Bello reiterated the importance of looking the Cabotage Act critically to see how the barge operators would fit in, to protect indigenous capacity of barge operation.
He noted barge operation as a specialised vocation with a lot of technical and economic aspects, hence the need for structuring and regulation to ensure smooth flow.
The NSC boss said that good understanding, control and regulation were needed to ensure sanity in barge operations.
“Barge operations have come to stay; it is helpful to the economy, in the sense that we need to have multi-modal approach that will be used to evacuate cargoes from the port,” he said.
