FG losing N500m annually to criminals stealing export consignments

The Federal Government is currently losing N500 million annually to syndicates specialising in stealing export consignments.

The activity of the syndicate is also said to be undermining the current government’s efforts of economic diversification away from oil export.

The first incident is that of Global Enterprise, which was said to have brought his consignment intact to the port but between the time the goods arrived at the port and when it was loaded onboard the vessel, a sizeable quantity had been stolen.

The second is a consignment of four units of 20 feet containers of Sesame Seed that was to be shipped to Dubai sometime last year from a warehouse around the Coconut area of Lagos.

The breakdown of the figures showed that the exporter lost about N12.04 million of the N42.6 million worth of consignments, as 430 out of the 1520 bags got missing.

The latest is the stealing of a 40-foot container of cocoa meant for export to the United States of America, USA, where the investigation revealed that late last year the incident caused the exporter a loss of about N55 million.

The 40-foot container of cocoa (comprising 410 bags) was loaded around the Coconut area of Lagos on December 17, 2020, but the exporter’s agent was unable to locate the consignment almost a month after.

The matter was reported to the Roll-on-Roll-off, RoRo Port police Command who traced the owner of the truck to Ibadan. On arrest, the truck owner told the police that he sold the truck around March last year.