Why we promote dry ports, by Shippers Council boss

Nigeria Shippers Council [NSC] is actively promoting the establishment of dry ports and truck transit parks all over the country in order to bring shipping business to the doorsteps of shippers and traders, its Executive Secretary Malam Hassan Bello said in Abuja yesterday.

He spoke at Media Trust Limited’s corporate head office, where he paid a visit. He said when the dry ports fully take off, they will be as good as the seaports and an importer can direct his goods to Kaduna dry port direct from Shanghai, for instance.

Bello said the dry port legacy projects started at Ibadan, Kano, Funtua, Jos and Kaduna through a Public Private Partnership [PPP] agreement during the Obasanjo era proceeded very slowly because government was to build the dry ports but it had financial difficulties. There is a resurgence of interest in them now, he said, and dry ports will boost economic activity in the hinterland, promote the emergence of industrial clusters and also encourage potential exporters who are presently discouraged by distance from the seaports.

He said Nigeria’s landlocked neighbours such as Chad and Niger Republic are very interested in the take-off of these dry ports because shipping will be brought much closer to them. He however said the dry ports must avoid the mistakes that Nigeria made at the seaports and that all ports should be served not only by road but by rail, pipelines and waterways as well.

According to the executive secretary, NSC is the adviser to the government on shipping matters and it was established in 1978 in order to regulate activity at the ports and to protect cargo, “without which ships, ports and terminals are as good as useless.” NSC works to promote efficiency at Nigerian ports and also to improve our ports’ competitiveness against their counterparts in neighbouring countries, he said.

He said once, when a ship berthed in Nigeria, so many agencies boarded it and spent a lot of time checking various things, which led to costly delay because for a ship every hour lost is millions of naira.

NSC worked with other agencies to produce a Standard Operating Procedure which has promoted transparency, reduced delays and removed many agencies from the ports, he said. He said the adoption of automation technology will make it unnecessary for many agencies to board a ship because they can discharge their duties from their offices.

He said another area in which NSC intervened was the holding of regular workshops to acquaint judges and lawyers with admiralty law because shipping litigation used to be long and costly because practitioners were not familiar with it. Law of shipping was only recently introduced into law faculties by NSC through the National Universities Commission, he said.

Nigerian ports, Bello said, are gaining on our neighbours and are attracting more patronage due to their improved efficiency, even though he said the economic recession has affected the progress being made. He said the executive orders signed by the Acting President on ease of doing business have promoted greater efficiency in the ports. Government’s aim is to make Nigeria the hub of shipping activity in the region, Bello said.

He also said even though export volume is rising, it must be stepped up especially by increasing export of agricultural products. The cost of shipping to Nigeria increases when laden containers arrive with imports but go back empty due to shortage of exports, he said.

Malam Hassan Bello also spoke on NSC’s proposed truck transit parks which he said will be private sector driven with NSC only promoting and coordinating them. Each park, he said, will have ample parking space so that trucks will no longer park on highways as well as hotels, restaurants, petrol stations and workshops.

He spoke of the need to “humanise” drivers of long distance trucks, so that they will have a place to rest, eat and shower instead of driving nonstop for twelve hours or more.

See full interview in Daily Trust on Sunday.