IPNEWS: The National Port Authority convened an intensive, day long engagement today with major port stakeholders and the Consortium of Liberian Businesses Trading from China, bringing regulators, terminal operators, truckers, brokers, and importers to one table at NPA headquarters on Bushrod Island to confront a question that has shadowed Liberian commerce for years: why goods bound for local markets so often arrive late, and what it will take to change that.
The session was presided over by the Deputy Managing Director for Administration, Hon. James Richard Bernard, who currently serves as Acting Managing Director. Participants included APM Terminals, the Liberia Revenue Authority, the Port Truckers Association, GTSM/CTM, the National Brokers Association, and department heads from across the NPA.
Welcoming the group, Hon. Bernard framed the meeting as part of a broader campaign to bring the Freeport of Monrovia in line with its peers across the ECOWAS region. He pointed to the Authority’s recent acquisition of ultra modern navigational equipment, now enabling 24-hour navigational operations for goods and services moving through the port.
He told participants that with the port now operating 24 hours, plans are being workout to have banking institutions operate on Sundays from 11am-4pm, including Saturdays, and select holidays which will afford businesses the opportunity to clear their goods without delay. The persistent constraint, he said, is land. Limited yard space at the Freeport continues to cap what APM Terminals, the concessionaire managing port operations, can move through the facility.
Speaking for the Consortium of Liberian Businesses Trading from China, Mr. Saah Folliey Kpengba described the toll that delay takes on Liberian traders who travel as far as China to source goods for seasonal markets, only to watch shipments idle for months in transshipment, most often at the Vridi Port in Abidjan or the Port of Lome, for want of space at home.
The Liberia Revenue Authority countered with reassurance on cost, noting that Liberia still holds the most competitive tariff regime in the subregion against Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo. Its transaction windows now run throughout the week, the agency said, though it flagged a recurring obstacle of its own: consignees who delay funding their customs brokers, leaving legitimate charges unpaid and shipments stalled.
APM Terminals offered the clearest picture of the bottleneck’s true source. Its cranes, the operator said, can offload more than 600-800 containers in 24 hours, but between 100-150 containers are typically moved from the Port yard by customers which is the source of the problem for space. He said due to this constraint, hundreds of containers are offloaded that occupied the port yard that is creating the space problem.
The engagement closed not with a communique but with a working commitment. Stakeholders and the Consortium agreed to tighten coordination going forward, sharing advance notice of expected shipments and ensuring paperwork is complete before goods reach the Freeport. It is a modest procedural fix aimed at the heart of a national trade constraint, and a sign, in a country whose commerce still rises and falls on how quickly it’s one major port can move, of whether the public and private sectors can plan together as closely as they trade together.
