Lucky Amiwero is the President of the Council of Managing Directors of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents and Managing Director of Eyis Resources Limited. In this interview with PAUL OGBUOKIRI, he says that the hype on ease of doing business in Nigeria is a ruse in the port sector. He posits that Nigeria’s ports, though large, are far from being modern and are the most expensive in the world with no access roads and riddled with decaying infrastructure

What is your assessment of the port sector of Nigerian ‘s transport system under the Muhammadu Buhari government?

Well, this is the worse we’ve ever had in the port industry. Our access roads are bad, our procedures are archaic and most of the agencies of government are not performing their core functions like the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).

Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) appears a bit better because of the court cases but in almost every other area of our port operation, it’s like we have gone backwards by more than 500 per cent from our former position.

NPA for instance is not established for revenue collection as its core functions. There are three components of its core responsibility: One is the port operation that was taken over by Terminal Operators. Another of its core function is commercial regulation, which is now being handled by the Nigerian Shippers Council. The last is marine operation, which is farming out to different private operators.

Our ports have been left unregulated and becoming one of the most expensive in the world that you pay as much as N20,000 per day for a container that is left lying in the port because you cannot access the facility on time with your truck due to bad roads.

Do an analysis of the cost of doing business in Nigerian ports and you will agree that it is the most expensive in the world. Trucks will spend two to three weeks to access the ports and spend about four days to exit the port after collecting your consignment. This doesn’t happen anywhere in the world.

When you exit the ports with your consignment, you begin a battle of worries over likelihood of containers falling off or accident. People are dying on the Lagos ports roads. Have you not seen or heard of containers falling off on people?

Aside the accidents, the stress level of the port user has increased under this regime and this is terrible.

Fixing the ports access roads is part of NPA’s core functions under section 32 of its enabling law. NPA should take all the blames for not fixing the roads. It is their primary function to make them accessible.

NPA and the minister should take the blame. We have five ports clustered around here and they account for about 80 per cent of the cargoes that come into Nigeria. The stakes are high for us as a country if we develop our transport infrastructure for ease of vehicular movements to and from the ports.

Over 70 per cent of our revenue from the maritime sector is derived from Lagos, but we are not giving it commensurate attention. We are not predictable, we are not consistent and we are not transparent. These are the tools for trade facilitation and if they are not there, nobody can come into your country to invest.

There is this Presidential Council on Ease of Doing Business. Has it impacted on the maritime industry?

That council knows nothing about the ports. Most of them in that council have not seen a port in their lives. You don’t just go and bring people from your church and put them in a council that should oversee sensitive economic issues.

You need experts who have been in the port system. The woman that is the head of Ease of Doing Business has never come to the port before. She knows nothing about the operations here. She doesn’t understand the system and procedures. On ease of doing business on trading across borders, Nigeria is the worst.

Trading across borders is an important component of what we are talking about.

The Minister of Transport just goes about talking about rail; he has not made any impact here. The man knows nothing about this sector and is unwilling to learn. Most of the international conventions Nigeria is a signatory to are domiciled in the Ministry of Transport.

Amaechi knows nothing about the FAAL Convention that was used in facilitating trade in our ports between 2006 and 2008 and in 1999 when we have most of the laws that was used to reorganise the ports and make several maritime related laws.

Our port looks disorganised; SON, NAFDAC and other agencies of government are all operating unregulated. No coordinating agency, no lead agency. In fact nothing is working.

Look at Benin Republic, they asked Antwerp Ports to handle their port for them that mean most of Nigeria bound cargo will be going there. We will now be moving our smaller ships to their port to pick our cargoes to our archaic ports.

Benin Republic doesn’t have cargo. They rely on our cargo. For them to ask an advance port operator to manage their ports, they will give Nigeria very serious competition using our own cargoes.

Too many agencies want to play regulatory roles in our port. In Ghana the government awarded a contract of $4.5 billion for the expansion of Tema Port. Our transit trade has been taken over by Ghana.

Cargoes that should move from here to Niger, Chad and other countries are now moving from Ghana even though Ghana is longer, it is being patronised because their processes are better and easier.

Ghana has a more efficient system. The have an electronic tracking system tracking containers on transit, you don’t need Federal Operations to escort containers with guns. This is a small country that developed their system and we have so much to learn from them.

They are taking over our cargo and developing their system deploying technology to surpass Nigeria. Smaller countries are developing their ports to take Nigerian cargoes.

What is the implication of losing our cargoes to the ports of these neighbouring countries?

Soon bigger vessels with 20,000 TEUs capacity won’t be coming to Nigeria, they will be taking Nigerian cargoes to those ports. Within the West and Central African regions we need at least two transshipment centers. Some ports in the region are acting as centers already. Coted’ Ivoire, Ghana, Benin Republic and Togo are already operating as transshipment centers.

There is going to be a siphoning of most of our cargoes through their operations. The employment advantage will be in their favour. Where a ship berths, some jobs are created. The entire freight component, benefits of shipping companies, customs agents, terminals and others goes to the country where the ship berths

Most of our policy makers are ignorant about these things and the country is paying dearly for it. As a country, we seem not to have learnt anything from our mistakes. We keep going round the same circle of complaints because everyone in government or position is concerned about self enrichment.

Benin, Togo, Ghana and Coted’Ivoire have higher draft. This is not all about politics or getting favourable stories out in the media, it’s more about what your country put in place for economic growth and business development. Most of the ships coming here are smaller ships that have berthed in other countries and gotten the cargo transshipped. We have lost the economic advantage of having the mother ship calling in our port first hand.

For Ghana to have invested $4.5 billion in port development with careful project implementation agenda, they mean business. Nigeria has never done that. We either deploy funds that are not used well or we devise slogans to create impression that things are working.

Nigeria is not investing in the right directions. Our port concession has remained faulty from the foundation. No one has been able to look into what infrastructure the Concessionaires have built or real value they have added to what they met on the ground.

Ghana has dropped terminal handling and terminal delivery charges, our transport minister here is doing nothing. We have the market, we have the ports, we consume higher cargoes but we don’t have the infrastructure in place to accommodate large ships.

We have lost over two million jobs through a failing port system; Chad, Mali and Burkina faso are no more looking up to Nigeria for their cargoes because they are getting the service more efficiently from somewhere else.

We are in a very fierce economic battle with our neighbours in terms of ports development and maritime activities.

What are your views about emerging ports being planned by some state governments? Edo is talking about Gelegele Port, Akaw Ibom is talking about Ibaka Deep Seaport while Cross Rivers talks about Bakassi Deep Seaport and many more?

All these ports cannot work. I call them ‘political ports.’ Some people just want to pour money into them, abandon them and go away. Nigeria doesn’t need multiple transshipment centers now.

One of the core components of transshipment port is destination of cargoes. Do you have enough cargoes in Ondo, Edo Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers that all of them are talking about having deep seaports?

Ships you see coming to Lagos is because Lagos has potentials to consume cargoes, it has factories that need raw materials and many more including it’s population. Ships will not just move to any place just because you are constructing an emerging port there. Those things may just end up as abandoned projects.We have largely idle ports in Sapele, Onitsha, Burutu, Calabar, Warri. Ask yourself, how many ships are going there? Now some governors want to spend scarce resources to build more ports. Weeds and rats have overtaken some of these ports and you want to sink money into building new ones. It doesn’t make sense.

Lagos has what it takes to attract cargoes. Most of these states owing workers should not go into constructing political ports because they will amount to waste.

For instance, you cannot divert Lagos cargo to Calabar because you may not have the infrastructure to move it from Calabar to other parts of the country. These governors should look for something better to do with their funds and time. They should not go into expensive port construction projects that may end up being abandoned midway or being idle after completion.

Kaduna Dry Port, do you see the milestone as a major step forward in port infrastructural development?

The project remains an uncompleted one. They should finish it. As things stand, there is no law establishing the Kaduna Dry Port. So you need the National Assembly to do that with proper legal framework.

If the president or minister designates that facility as a Dry Port, what are they relying on to do so, is it NPA Act or Shippers Council law?

Our port related laws talks about navigation. It is centered on the marine sector. No provision has been made for Dry Ports in our laws. Part of our problem is that we don’t follow due process. That Kaduna facility can only be operated as a Customs Port or Bonded Terminal.

Source: https://newtelegraphonline.com/2018/02/port-industry-worse-buhari-administration-amiwero/

that is chanji expect d worse from him

There's a few things I disagree with him about being why port like onitsha are idle, political ports at least in case of Akwa Ibom and assumption only Lagos has capacity to absorb cargo. All river ports need dredging as government has promised and to be gazetted (apparently), the PPP website outlines case for Akwa Ibom and been in works for a decade, the eastern markets has plenty of growth and manufacturing will pick up.

The rest of article sounds sounds tragic. How can the dry ports have no legal frame work when the been planned out long in advance? If that's case buhari can judt submit bill or to NASS.

If Nigeria just followed the lead of our neighbors we would be better off. Ghana and Benin have made strides judt doing a few simple improvements.

PS: download Text to speech app if you want to read this article. I recommend @voice aloud if you have android device. Listening easier than reading.

Na who go read all this one wey long like constitution.

Selfish opinion, una no see money chop anyhow again, licensed smugglers always short changing government. Ghana is not Nigeria. What works in Ghana might not be the best for Nigeria given our particular disposition to laws.

tunjiajayi:
Selfish opinion, una no see money chop anyhow again, licensed smugglers always short changing government. Ghana is not Nigeria. What works in Ghana might not be the best for Nigeria given our particular disposition to laws.

Have you been to the Lagos port recently ...All you Buharistvare just clowns who go about labelling anyone who exposes Buhari as being corrupt ..

tunjiajayi:
Selfish opinion, una no see money chop anyhow again, licensed smugglers always short changing government. Ghana is not Nigeria. What works in Ghana might not be the best for Nigeria given our particular disposition to laws.

What did you read come to the conclusion? Are you saying electronic tracking won't in Nigeria or getting rid of some fees is bad? What in the "Nigerian disposition" would make this unworkable? If you want to stay competitive we should rise to the competition.

Ghana has a more efficient system. The have an electronic tracking system tracking containers on transit, you don’t need Federal Operations to escort containers with guns. 

Ghana has dropped terminal handling and terminal delivery charges, our transport minister here is doing nothing. 

sunnysunny69:
Na who go read all this one wey long like constitution.

I understand most would rather read troll bait like yorubas about as are killing our ports. That easily goes on for 5 pages easy. Read blue part or get text to speech app.

Ok.