Increase Uche (Deputy President NAGAFF)
I think Shippers Council should play cool on that because, so many countries have relocated from Nigeria considering the current policies in place. If the investors are not assured of cargo it will be difficult for them to invest on the ICD projects. If government is saying that they are broke how do they expect investors in such projects to have money to execute these massive projects? Withdrawal of agreement is not the best, rather government should encourage them in their own little ways.
Rotimi Raimi (ICNL)
Funding is a major issue in the ICD projects and the banks are not willing to assist the investors in anyway, considering the state of the Nigerian economy. The import and export banks are not ready to give out loans, so also is the African Development Bank. The investors are also worried about the prospect on their investments, considering the fact that government policies are unfriendly at the moment. The federal government through the Nigerian Shippers Council needs to assist the concessionaires by way of sourcing the required funds for them. The Buhari government should focus on the maritime sector in order for it to bounce back, because currently investors are not willing to import or invest in the industry; therefore my advice is that the Nigerian Shippers Council should consider the current situation in the country and should not also terminate those who cannot meet the deadline, because millions of Naira have been sunk into the projects.
Frank Aliakor (ANLCA)
Shippers Council’s directive is coming at a time when the economy is bad. The terminal operators at the moment don't have vessels or cargoes to handle. The ICDs at this time is not what we should be talking about, because of the low cargo throughput. The ports are not performing at optimal level, then government is talking tough to withdraw the ICDs investors’ licenses which I will say is wrong at the moment. The ports are under-utilised, imports and even exports are low, thus there is need for Shippers Council to advise the government of the day on how to boost international trade and not to sanction investors who are afraid to invest at the moment.
Stanley Ezenga (PRO NAGAFF)
Essentially, the ICD 's initiatives was to decongest the seaports, considering the high volume of traffic in our ports in time past. But today the case has changed. Even the terminal operators do not have cargoes to handle at the moment; talk more of transferring those cargoes to ICDs as the case may be. It is unfortunate that millions of Naira have been sunk into that project, but with the current economic recession nobody would want to build a world class facility and at the end no cargo goes to that place then, it becomes a problem because every investor wants to make profit and the place will be under-utilised. However government should withdraw their threats because this is not the right time for anybody to invest in Nigeria due to government policies.
Prince Olayiwola Shittu (President ANLCA)
I think it makes no sense on the part of the concessionaires for failing to put their facilities in place after a long while of signing this agreement with the government ; if they fail to make the facilities operational then government has the right to shut them down. I think government should not encourage our infrastructure to decay before coming to repair the facilities. If you have a dry port that you cannot manage then let the government take charge. The point is that the economy is down and influx of cargoes have reduced, which is normal because there is no country in the world that has faced recession and did not survive therefore with optimism; we should have the opportunity to handle future inflow of cargoes and we cannot shutdown those facilities. The dry port issue is like implementing the policy of government to decongest the seaports and it also gives people the opportunity to relief pressure from our road.
Chief Eugene Nweke (Stakeholder)
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council has done well in this regards, considering the fact that the concessionaires are supposed to go through the concession agreement of the dry ports before signing. People don't take their time to consider the risk element in business before signing any agreement in Nigeria and it’s a problem. The Shippers Council knows what it’s doing as a result of the dry ports project, thus they are not to be blame in anyway, rather the concessionaires because they placed the cart before the horse. They failed to put such facilities in place after how many years of the agreement which to me is not a good essence of investment.
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