The Presidential Committee on 48-hour Cargo Clearance (PCCC) may have been tasked to ensure that its mandate to auction goods which were abandoned in the ports beyond the statutory days would not result in undue loss of containers in which the goods were brought.

   Sources told the Nigerian Tribune that the shipping companies who gave the charge also told the 19 member ports monitoring committee which met at the conference room of the Nigeria Ports Authority, Western zone, Apapa, that they could no longer keep mute, in view of the soaring loss their members were recording, with the numbers of containers, put at well over 4,000 which the committee had moved to Ikorodu Lighter Terminal, preparatory to their being auctioned, as overtime cargo.

  “Auctioned containers are usually lost and never to be recovered again” disclosed the chieftain of the shipping companies, pleading for anonymity.

    Pointing out that his group could no longer afford to keep quiet on the issue, he posited that so far, over 2080 TEUs out of an approximately 4500 overtime TEUs, were already evacuated from the ports to Ikorodu Lighter Terminal, .

    Meanwhile, the PCCC committee headed by Professor Sylvester Monye, a Special Adviser on Performance Monitoring and Evaluation to President Jonathan, have also met with the representatives of terminal operators, who were complaining of losing lots of money due to the transferring of overtime cargo to Ikorodu.

    It was learnt that the container transfer issue may subsequently become one of the cardinal reasons as to why a stakeholders meeting may be held very soon, at a date yet to be disclosed by the Committee.