Mr. Muhammed Bulangu is the Acting Managing Director of Ports and Cargo Handling Terminal?, a subsidiary of Sifax Group and operators of Terminal 'C' at the Tin Can Island Port in Lagos. In this interview with Shipping Position Daily's Dapo Olawuni, he spoke on the port reforms carried out by government in 2006 and its attendant benefits and challenges. The company also celebrated ten years of the concession exercise recently. Bulangu lamented that vessels are no longer coming to Nigeria ports, he said this will automatically affect terminal operators lease agreement payment to? the Federal Government.
Ten years of port concession, can you draw a comparison between pre-concession and post concession?
Ten years is a long time?, by and large I have said it that concession of the ports have been good for the industry and for the economy of Nigeria, if there is one thing government has done in the last ten years especially as it affects the maritime industry, it is port concession. Business in the maritime sector is enormous, the investment needed there is huge and I don't think government has the funds to invest in the sector considering the responsibility of government in other areas of the economy. So the port reform of 2003 which culminated into the concessioning of the terminals in 2006 is one major step in the right direction, thereby freeing public funds from port operations into other areas of needs in other sectors of the economy, for me it is a welcomed development and it is something that has impacted positively on the economy, it has opened other areas of businesses in the sector, within these 10 years, a lot of businesses have been developed, and if you look at the volume of investment by the various concessionaires in the port sector, it is huge.
You were on the government side during concession, now you are with private sector, how does it feel?
Being a public servant is an experience, being in the private sector is another experience. In the public sector, there is a chain of command which is not that available in the private sector; with the private sector, time is money, time is of essence. In the public sector, time is the factor that is least considered and this was why things happen the way they do. If you look at the private sector under concession, a lot of investment was done within a short time, most of the terminals acquired equipment that took government years. For example?, Ports Cargo is a multi-purpose terminal and what we have done in the first three years of operations here is notable, the equipment procured were more than what government procured in 10 years. If you look at the shore cranes that we procured within the first three years of concession, we procured three of them (mobile harbour cranes), ridge stackers and terminal tractors.
When I was port manager under Nigerian Ports Authority, one of the greatest challenge was maintaining equipment, but with the private sector, decisions are taken with fiat, not waiting for certain processes, once there is a need, it is given the immediate attention.
How is Ports and Cargo coping with the prevailing economic downturn?
It is good to always save for the rainy day, and what we have always done in Ports and Cargo is to cut our coat according to our size, we know what the industry and the clients need and we work in that direction, it has not been business as usual when we used to have over 30 vessels in a month, now it has dropped, but still, the service we render to our esteemed customers remain the same because customer satisfaction is very important to us.
Does it mean you have never thought about downsizing?
We cannot say we would not downsize considering the challenges faced by every terminal?, mind you, we are an indigenous terminal operator, whatever we are doing we have the consideration of our nation first, so whatever steps we are taking, it is not because the revenue is not coming and we must sack people, we need to put our country first.
Your predecessor complained about the quay walls and fender at you jetty, what's the situation now?
Fortunately, fenders have been fixed in all our berths and vessels are berthing without problems, it is true we had that challenge before and we had been going up and down with the Nigerian Ports Authority, but that God the contractor employed has done a lot of work, with our support and contributions. Lack of fenders alone can send shipping companies away from your terminal, but with us it is a thing of the past.
?What improvements have your company carried out at the terminal concessioned to you?
I will divide the terminal into three; the shipside operations, the yard operations and facility maintenance. For the ship operations we have invested massively in the purchase of seven mobile crane's which are even being used by any terminal around in the absence of Ship to Shore (STS) equipment , where there is no STS, the next efficient means of offloading cargoes from vessels is the mobile harbour cranes?. NPA used to have two STS, later APMT brought some in 2009 but it did not last, in absence of the STS we use the harbour cranes. When it comes to yard operations, we have Rubber Tyre Gantries or Ridge Stackers, for the ship side we have the terminal tractors to discharge what is offloaded from the shipside straight to the yard, from there it is removed by the Ridge Stackers. We also have palm held equipment that can tell you the location of any container in our yard; this makes it easy for identification and for custom examination. On the maintenance of the terminal; in terms of electricity, for sometime now we have been using our generators.
How badly hit is Ports and Cargo by the policies of government, what is your advice to government?
The economic downturn is a general thing that affects everybody, the ports are not an exception even though they play a major role as gateway to the nation's economy, the economy? over the years is import-dependent, so when there is less forex, there is less import, the effect of that is less activity and this has affected everyone, for some of our competitors, it is worse than our own, we are doing everything to minimize the negative effect on our workforce and ensure we remain afloat.
??Our profits have dropped compared to when we were less efficient, we made money when we were less efficient, in the last 10 years, we never had all these facilities, and it takes 12 days for importers to get their cargoes, they pay demurrage and we make more money, but now we are more efficient, instead of making more money we are going down, but that is not a problem, the customers satisfaction is our job.
Without electricity, how much do you spend daily to maintain the terminal running on generators?
We are connected to the national grid, but anytime there is no supply, we have to provide our own alternative. Over time, we spend a lot of money on buying diesel, I cannot be specific but we spend millions of Naira to run the generators, this is because of our offices, we have cargoes that are kept in refrigerated containers.? In the last one week, we have not had light for more than 10 minutes, Occasionally we get the light for five or 10 hours out of 24 hours, and anytime there is rain, you can be sure there won't be light.
Some terminals are finding it difficult to pay their obligations with Federal Government
The economy has hit every concessionaire and Ports and Cargo is not an exemption, the issue of lease fee or throughput fee is something on the front burners, but how do we get the money? It is from the ships, and if the ship is not there, there is no way we can pay. When the going was good, we always measured up and at the same time we saved for the rainy day, we have been keeping to our commitments on the concession agreement, we may have one issue or the order with the lease, but that notwithstanding we don't default, we do everything within the system to ensure we meet our obligations because the concession agreement is sacrosanct.
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