Students from Stars Maritime Academy (SMA) recently embarked on an excursion to Greenview Development Nigeria Limited (GDNL) at the Lagos Ports Complex (LPC) where they were taught about modern ports and terminals handling techniques and operations.
On their own , the students described the excursion to the terminal as a worthwhile exercise
The cadets were taken through port concession and the purpos behind port concession, types of terminals in Nigeria, roles of Nigeria dockworkers and the various modes of transportation.
Students from Stars Maritime Academy (SMA) recently embarked on an excursion to Greenview Development Nigeria Limited (GDNL) at the Lagos Ports Complex (LPC) where they were taught about modern ports and terminals handling techniques and operations.
On their own , the students described the excursion to the terminal as a worthwhile exercise
The cadets were taken through port concession and the purpos behind port concession, types of terminals in Nigeria, roles of Nigeria dockworkers and the various modes of transportation.
The students were received at the terminal by human resources manager of GDNL; Mr. David Ade and Mr. Galadima Andrew.
Responding to cadets questions during an interactive session, the senior personnel affirmed that the purpose of concessioning was to remove bottlenecks in the maritime industry.
The human resource manager explained to the cadets that the idea of port concessioning was to benefit the Nigeria economy noting that GDNL is owned by Aliko Dangote and it is an indigenous terminal operator in Nigeria.
According to him, GDNL handles three different categories of cargoes, which include: sugar refinery, flour and gypsum (for production of cement).
He disclosed that the company is also constructing a salt warehouse.
When asked if there is any difference between now and when the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) was in charge of operation in terms of turn around time, David explained that, "there is a big difference from what it used to be and the turn around time of vessels is now 6 days for dry bulk cargoes and 2 days for liquid cargoes"
Reacting to question on port congestion, he explained further that, “there are different factors that lead to port congestion saying that inadequate accessible transit in and out of the ports, dishonest attitude of importers who dump cargoes at the ports as a result of charges instead of taking the consignment to their warehouses outside the port and corruption on the part of personnel of agencies in the port.
He also called for the increase in penalty for abandoning cargoes at port, adding that it will discourage Nigerian importers.
He stressed that vessel owners pay as high as $25,000 per day as demurrage thus, "no ship owner will want to spend so much at a particular port".
Meanwhile,Mr. Galadima Andrew took the cadets round the terminal explaining how the terminal operates.
Galadima told t the cadets various methods and ways in which cargoes are discharged from ships and how the goods are moved out of the ports
However, one of the students, Bassey Emmanuel in a chat with Shipping Position Daily last week described the excursion as a huge success.
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