Shippers’ Council charges states with ICDs on efficiency

Segun Oladipupo |

The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has charged state governmentts where Inland Container Depots (ICDs) are situated to support such facilities for optimal performance.

The Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of NSC, Barr. Hassan Bello who gave the charge at a recent function in Lagos, said that the Kaduna ICD was functioning optimally because of the support it is getting from the state government.

Bello said Kaduna state government removed some of the challenges that would have encumbered the process of the dry port in terms of land documentation and other challenges.

Bello added that the Council is working with Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) to bring up a new operational framework for the ICDs different from what used to obtain.

He also averred that nationwide insecurity is another threat to the progress of the projects.

Recall that the Council had established ICDs across the six geo political zones of the country to bring shipping services close to shippers in the hinterland.

He maintained that the new modality it is working out, will take away the challenges of land transaction and documentations which he said the Council is working with ICRC on for a more progressive regime that will engender efficiency.

He said the new modalities would include issuing deadlines to the ICD operators to forestall any form of complacency that may further delay the full takeoff of the dry ports.

His words, “You know that only the Kaduna dry port is working, it is primarily because the private sector operators, who won the concession bids have been having issues associated with the land documentations, some of them do not have the financial capability to go on with the project.

“Remember that they are the ‘guinea pigs’ of Public Private Partnership PPP arrangement in the country even before the creation of the ICRC. But we have steered all these encumbrances for a more progressive regime, which necessitated the signing of the new set of agreements,” he stated.

He expressed fear over problem of poor infrastructure, especially the issue of the comatose state of the nation’s rail systems, as the only means of moving consignments from the seaports to the dry ports has remained road transport, further worsened by the poor state of the roads, which have already been over-stretched.