About 80 percent of our cargoes are still being moved by roads - ICNL boss

Mr IsmaI’ll Adekola Yusuf, is the Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer of Inland Container Nigeria Limited (ICNL).

In this interview with FUNSO OLOJO, the ICNL boss delved into the operations of Inland Container Deposit (ICDs), the challenges and prospects and what makes ICNL stands head and shoulders above its peers.

Q. You are the operators of ICDs in Kano and Kaduna, what has been your experience since you started?

A. You know the purpose of establishing dry ports and ours is one of them, and been the first dry ports to be operational, we are bound to face some teething problem, since that part of business was commission by the president in January 2018, we have been operating in that
regard to service the people at the hinterlands.

And been the first to operate thi kind of business which has never been in the country, you
are bound to face some challenges which we are trying as much as possible to surmount.

Q. We understand that one of the problems is infrastructural deficits such as lack of good roads and rail linkage?

A. Every business has its own challenges, even maritime as a whole is faced with infrastructural deficit and we have been trying to find a
way of solving the challenges.

Every dry port requires a good network of roads and rail and we all know that government is trying its best in this regard to sort some of these problems through massive rail project in the country.

Q. How well has customers been patronizing your facilities?
A. After the commissioning by the president and the standard gauge railway from Lagos to Ibadan, the patronage has been encouraging and we
have had useful discussions with Nigeria Railway Corporation and they have told us their challenges and how they will be able to improve on their facilities and make their facilities more attractive to customers.

After the commissioning, we have made a couple of trips and we intend to increase the volume of cargo transported to our facilities through
railways as time goes on.

Q. How often do you get cargo from the ports through rail?

A. The promise made by the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) is that we load on weekly basis and they have been trying to meet up with that
promise.

Q. Can we simply say that you rely more on road than rail to get your cargo?

A. Yes about 80% of our cargos are simply moved by road, until the Nigerian Railway Corporation is increased in capacity.

Q. Apart from Kaduna, how well is your Kano dry port doing?

A. We are doing well, you should know that Kano is a commercial city and a hub for business in Northern Nigeria and definitely there is more businesses from that State.

We have more businesses in Kano presently than in Kaduna. Notwithstanding, Kaduna too is pulling its weight in terms of business, particularly patronage from the surrounding cities like Abuja.

Q. Importers have been complaining about high .What are your charges like?

A. Our charges have not changed for the last five years, so it’s not our own charges that is high or they are complaining about. Maybe the high
charges are high because of transportation and you know the reason behind that.

Q. Giving the infrastructural challenges facing ICD project, is the business worthwhile?
A. If you make the comparison how the business is done here in Nigeria and abroad, you will know they are a lot of challenges facing the operators in the country which constitute a lot of burden on them.

Such as infrastructural challenges which federal government is trying to address such as road and rail.

Q. How often has Nigerian shippers’ council been helful to the ICD operators?

A. As a regulator that has been trying to stimulate growth of business, they try as much as possible to address the challenges being faced by
the operators.

Q. You bidded for Onitsha River dry port. What are your expectations?

A. We hope to win because we have been operators of bonded terminal for
four decades which we believe stands us in good stead to win the bid.

It will give us an edge as a local operator.

Q. Apart from the infrastructural challenges, in what area can government

make the ICD project more viable to attract investors?

A. There should be a regulation and policy statement that would be binding on all operators.

Also government should embark on
enlightenment programme to make people in the hinterland be aware of the importance of dry ports which they could use to take delivery of
theirs good from the dry ports instead of regular ports which are far away from them.

Q. As an operator of ICD, how do you source for your cargo?

A. We embark on aggressive marketing that is how we get business. More often than not, we approach the shipping companies and the
terminal operators to release consignments which are mostly groupage to the people and whose owners reside in the hinterlands.

Q. As an operator, what do you do to make people in the interland make use of the ICD facilities rather than go to the ports in Port Harcourt or Lagos?
A. We have been advertising, hosting seminars. Shippers Council and Kaduna State Government have all been holding programs and seminars to sensitize the public on the importance of ICDs. These are geared towards making people patronize our facilities.

Q. What is your projection on the viability of dry ports in the coming years?

A. Dry ports will not necessarily displace the conventional sea ports but will continue to play a complementary role to each other. The dry ports will continue to play a vital role in cargo delivery system, because conventional ports are supposed to be transit points for goods
which will eventually be warehoused by the dry ports.

It is because we have not been operating dry ports in this country that is why most people regard conventional ports as warehouse for their goods. By the time all the ICDs in the country are working with good infrastructure, goods will not wait for more than two days in the ports. Containers shouldn’t last more than two days in the port before they are taken out of the port.

Q. How has the gridlock affected ICD business?
A. It has been a big problem and it’s affecting business generally. For instance, when there was no gridlock, the cost of transporting goods from Lagos to Kano was between N400,000 to N600,000 depending on the dead weight of the cargo. Now with the gridlock, the transporter could not access cargo at the port for 2-3 weeks and this has made them increase the price for the same cargo and the same distance to N1m to N1.5million.

It does not mean that the cost of item has increased but the cost of transportation has added to the cost. Since every business owner wants to make profits, these extra costs are passed unto the final consumer.

So it a big problem for us and I commend the federal government for its efforts to clear the gridlock because that its what they ought to do.

If we discover that the port capacity cannot accommodate the imports any longer, they should either expand or create additional ports or alternatively, create a holding bay for empty containers at the outskirt of Lagos to decongest the port and let rail be connected to such holding bay that would take these containers from the Ports to these facilities.

This will reduce the number of containers on our roads which will ultimately reduce drastically the cost of transportation and eventually everybody will be happy. During this traffic gridlock, ICDs lost revenue because where you are supposed to moved 1000 containers we were able to move 300-400 containers.