Port operators have embraced our registration exercise – Hassan Bello 

How many people have you registered so far?
We have tried with the registration, the number is increasing everyday, we have even paid back the excesses of the money to  those who registered with the old rate, the process is being done online, but some stakeholders are coming to do it manually, the registration  process is very impressive because there is benefits for the operators.

Now, police are no longer checking containers on the highway because the shippers Council has stopped it through the assistance of the Inspector General of Police, even if they are to check the containers as part of their constitutional duties, they have to do it through the Nigerian Shippers Council, sometimes they could have reasonable suspicion that something is happening, it is their constitutional duty, but they have to do it through us because we know that time is of essence in cargo clearance, we don’t want any hindrance to clearance of goods at the port.

Have the police been complying with this arrangement?
Yes, they have been complying, we have had one or two incidents where we called the police and immediately they had to leave the affected container. Again, what the IG of Police, God bless him, said was that only the maritime police command should have anything to do with cargo and this is the right thing. Before now, all sorts of police formation would just come up and start arresting containers, they get the manifest and demand that the containers should not be released, but now we have stopped all that

Now we are issuing circular to all the shipping companies that they should not honor any intervention or any written directives that cargoes or containers should be detained. From there, we are hoping for corporation with the Customs to streamline the process of cargo clearance to make it transparent and fast, we need infrastructures at the port, we don’t have  scanners now, very soon we are going to reintroduce the Cargo Tracking Note so that their would be faster delivery of cargoes. And now, the Managing Director of NPA, Hadiza Bala Usman has been elected at the IMO  as the Chairman of the FAL Committee, this is no mince feat, so, facilitation for the ships and for the cargoes, the arrival, stay and departure of ships would be reinvigorated so that Nigeria would at least be at par with regional standards before we go to international standards. We are winning, cargo is coming to Nigeria now more than ever before, we are now getting the cargo back from our competitors, now everybody wants to come to Nigeria and this is just the beginning. Of course, we have challenges of infrastructures and the roads, but the government is doing everything to ensure the challenges are addressed. The ultimate is the National Single Window platform, NPA, the Nigerian Customs is talking about it, the moment we get that, all of would be connected, the Shippers Council also has a single window, we have our port support portal, the complaints and others, we would also like to unveil but it would be a duplication, we would want to monitor arrival of containers so that there would not be any demurrage, some terminal operators would like to shortchange us, even when the ship has arrived without discharging it’s contents, they would start counting the days of demurrage.
But, we have had so much corporation from the shipping companies

What is the Council doing to address the extortion of truckers by the Navy on access roads to the port?
The problem of the port access road is lack of planning on the part of the federal government, everybody knows that our population increases by 2.5% per anum, and since the 1970’s when these terminals were built, their capacity has been on a standstill while the population has increased in several folds, so you should expect a bit of congestion because it is now the port meeting the city or the city meeting the port, what we really need are new ports, we cannot continue to over flog Tin Can and Apapa Ports as if that is the main port, we should have deep water ports like the ones going on in Lekki, it is very important that new ports  or new outlets are developed to increase capacity.

Now, there is an attraction to deep-sea ports, it is a natural port, what we have at Tin Can and Apapa port is a river port, it is very difficult to maintain, you have to dredge it continuously in Capital and Maintenance dredging, you have to dredge the channels and also the berths so that it would acquire certain draft that would allow big ships come in, in Lagos here, what do we have? Maximum of 8 to 9meters, meanwhile we need up to about 16meters like the ones in Lekki, this means that the economics of scale is, we would have ships bringing in more cargoes, but the feeder vessels should go to the eastern ports of Calabar, Warri, Port Harcourt, Koko Ports among others so that it would be a hub and spook thing as done in other countries.

Access to ports is very important, what we have in Lagos is a unimodal, which means one mode of transportation, the road carries 80% of all the total cargoes, is this logical when we have the rail? The rail has capacity to carry more volumes. Then, even the inland waterways, a cargo of ten trailers would fit into one barge. Why we have congestion in Lagos is also because of the tank farms, but then the pipeline is there, it is also a means of transportation, once you pump the product outside, tankers would not have to come in.

I want to know if cargoes are now being moved by rail to Kaduna Dry Port
Occasionally, yes, but then, twenty four wagons are now being acquired, the Nigerian Railway Corporation has dedicated twenty four wagons specifically for moving cargoes to Kaduna, we would launch that in the first week of May 2019 in Kaduna, we shall witness the first operations of the wagons. As I speak with you now, the import level to Kaduna Dry Port is rising, even with the trucks, people are sending their cargoes there, the Nigeria Customs Service would examine the goods there and duties are being paid over there, so instead of the whole North Central and Northwest coming to Lagos, they would rather stay in Kaduna and receive their cargo.

Kaduna State has started feeling the impact of having a dry port, many people have moved to Kaduna; freight forwarders are opening offices over there, banks are opening offices over there, very soon we would have processing industries, warehousing and trucking, so it is a spill over on the economy, it has rippled effects consequent on what Kaduna would be able to offer. But, even more importantly is the export, Kaduna is known for its ginger, now we would be able to export ginger abroad, Cow horn is now being exported, there is vast natural resources there, all that needs to be done is to sensitize the people.

Like I said earlier, Customs is now operating in Kaduna, they have linked Kaduna port to the NICIS 2 system, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has included Kaduna Dry Port in its letter of credit, Form M, the NDLEA, SON and some other agencies have now opened offices in Kaduna, even though I have reservations about that, we don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the seaports at the Kaduna dry port, we are still talking with the operators of the dry port to have an electronic gate and a electronic call up system so that we don’t have cargo congestion, whatever mistakes we have made at the seaport, we are trying to avoid them at the dry port and I think we are succeeding.

Port users have lamented high cost of moving cargoes to Kaduna, how can the price be brought down?

We are negotiating with the Nigerian Railway Corporation, we had a meeting with them on this issue, so we are seriously negotiating, but as a shipper also, if you have a large volume of consignment, you can negotiate with them, they can give you a discount depending on your frequency.

In the registration of port stakeholders, there were oppositions, how far have you gone?

We made a mistake in the first place because we did not consult the stakeholders, it was our fault, but this has been addressed, we are always ready to accept our mistakes, how can you just wake up and ask people to come and start paying money, I mean, this can only happen in the old days, now we are servants and you guys are the masters.