ICDs: Panacea to Congestion at Conventional Seaports

Seun Abiola I

Inland dry ports otherwise known as Inland Container Depots (ICD’s) or Containers Freight Stations (CFs) are equivalent of a sea port located in the hinterland.
ICD receives containers by rail or road from the seaport for examination and clearance by Customs and other designated authorities.

It has all the loading and off-loading equipment needed to handle containers.
ICD brings shipping services to the door steps of shippers across the nation, assists in decongesting the seaports to make them more user friendly and assists in the over-all costs of cargo to hinterland locations as well as transit cargoes to landlocked countries.

Already, construction works of five ICDs by various companies which have keyed into the initiative, are in progress in various parts and geo-political zones of the country while that of the North-west geopolitical zone has become operational.

In Jos, North Central, Duncan Maritime Services Ltd has started an ICD project and in Isiala Ngwa (Aba), South-East, the Eastgate Inland Container Terminal Ltd has begun another ICD project.

Dala Inland Dry Port in Kano, North West, now owns an ICD, with Migfo Nigeria Limited, Maiduguri taking care of the North East. Catamaran Logistics Limited in Ibadan is expected to bridge up for the South West, while Equatorial Marine Oil & Gas Limited, Funtua, has taken up the ICD initiative for the North East.

The Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer, Hassan Bello said apart from assisting in decongesting the seaports and making them more user-friendly, the ICDs are expected to bring shipping services to the door steps of shippers across the nation.

Experts also said the ICD project needs to be aided by government as it would help to revive and modernise the railway as a primary mode for the long distance haulage of cargo, as well as assist in the reduction of overall cost of transit cargo to landlocked neighbouring countries.

Establishment of customs clearance facility close to production and consumption centres and improved container usage and reduction in the movement of empty containers have also been identified as inevitable benefits of the ICDs.

Speaking on the benefits of the ICD, Bello explained, “The success of the ICD projects will definitely ensure greater efficiency of the terminals. This will in turn improve the turnaround time of ships thereby reducing demurrage and eliminating cases of pilferage; issuance of thorough Bill of Lading by Shipping lines and thereby assuming liability from dispatch to destination ports, as well as lower freight to increase trade flows. There will be optimal use of surface transport and the decongestion of the sea ports; reduction in marine pollution activities around the seaport and easy and safe access to international shipping facilities in the hinterland giving a boost to inland trading.”

The shippers’ Council boss also disclosed that the success of the ICDs’ would take a positive effect on the country’s agricultural development.

“You know all these trucks coming to the ports; you won’t see them because the goods will be taken to the door steps of the shippers . Also, the economies that Lagos State and Rivers State have been enjoying at the seaports will be repeated in these dry ports. Somebody said the economy will bounce because of the ripple effect – factories, consolidations such as ware houses, and then, we have neighbours that are landlocked and we have an international obligation to ferry their cargo there. That way, inland ports will be ideal.

“We have got one in Kaduna. We are thinking of one in Isiala Ngwa, Funtua, they have got technical partners. Kano has got technical partners and they are all swinging into construction.

“I was in Jos recently with the Governor of Plateau state who came to our office personally in Shippers’ Council to make sure that this port begins. And when I went, the port in Jos is being constructed. These are modern infrastructure because the infrastructure deficit in the transport sector is so huge but that does not mean it is insurmountable.

“Any time you have infrastructure, the chain is production, development. Now, look at all the waste in agricultural produce in Northern Nigeria, if we have factories concentrated near the ICDs, then these produce can be evacuated. Right now, we have to export or we perish.”

With the foregoing, if properly executed as the Nigeria Shippers’ Council since its appointment as port economic regulator had intensifies efforts to develop Inland Container Depots (ICD) across the six geo -political zones of Nigeria as it is doing, the ICD shall definitely be a panacea to current congestion and related problems experienced at our conventional seaports.