New Directive to Free Dry Port of Containers

The Ministry of Transport (MoT) and the Maritime Affairs Authority (MAA) are working on a directive with provisions for cutting container lease costs and the repossession of cargo left at dry ports for a certain period of time.

The directive, which has now been handed over to stakeholders for comment, has been in process for some months.

The Ethiopian Shipping & Logistics Service Enterprise (ESLSE) leases most of the containers, for which it has to pay in dollars. The draft directive will allows the Ethiopian Customs & Revenues Authority (ERCA) to transfer contents of containers within 30 days of arrival to warehouses, both within and outside the dry port. This move is intended to save both space at the dry port and the dollars paid for the lease of containers.

The directive, titled ‘Placing & Keeping Goods at Dry Port Terminals’, aims to outline the rights and responsibilities each stakeholder has over goods placed at dry ports, in the multimodal system, where goods are delivered using more than one mode of transport under one contract. The draft directive also seeks to provide solutions over the fate of goods that have stayed for too long at the Modjo and other satellite dry ports. Such solutions include penalising those that have not picked up their goods by repossessing their items.

The existing customs proclamation of 2009, indicates that customers who do not take possession of their cargoes within 60 days, and process their taxes, are to have their goods confiscated by the authorities. However, this law was not implemented after the ESLSE launched the multimodal system in February 2011.

“This is because the system was new and a lot of stakeholders are involved,” a higher official at the MoT told Fortune. “Moreover, the Enterprise had not delivered goods on time, and customers could not be penalised because of this.”

Through the multimodal system, the Enterprise became responsible for the delivery of goods all the way to inland dry ports, leaving out forwarders and transporters that previously did such work. But, the transition was not smooth. Newly amalgamated out of three separate entities – the Ethiopian Maritime Transit Services (EMTS), Dry Port Service Enterprise (DPSE), and the Ethiopian Shipping Lines (ESL), the Enterprise was unable to bring containers to Modjo quickly enough.

In July 2012, there were around 22,000 containers piled up at the Djibouti port, whilst the Enterprise only had the capacity to bring in 300 a day. By October and November of 2012, however, the ESLSE announced that the situation had stabilised and it was the congestion taking place at the dry port in Modjo that was creating a problem.

At the time, there were around 5,100 containers, measuring up to twenty equivalent units (teu), at the Modjo port, for an average stay period of 55 days.

With finance and lack of information about the arrival of goods, being mentioned as the major problems for not claiming the containers, the Enterprise started putting up arrival notices on its website and arranged for credit facilities for importers.

But, still goods that came until January 8 were not being picked up and newly shipped containers also stayed at the port for a long time. As of last Tuesday, there were 5,600 teu containers at Modjo, with an average stay of 49 days. At Modjo, on average, 120 teu of containers come in on a daily basis, whilst only 80 teu’s go out.

A higher official at the Modjo dry port says other bodies, such as the ERCA and banks are losing revenue when goods are left at the dry port.

“We have to use the carrot and stick approach,” he added. “If incentives do not work we have to start taking measures.”


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