Low Credit Facilities Is Cause of High Port Charges – CRFFN Chair

Apparently reacting to the recent statistics given by the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) about the expensive cost of doing business in Nigeria, the chairman of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), Alhaji Hakeem Olanrewaju has said that lack of enough credit facilities for investors is one of the factors that has contributed to the expensive nature of the ports.
Olanrewaju confirmed to Shipping Position Weekly correspondent in Abuja that the banks are not so willing to give credit facilities to enable people invest more in the sector and even create easy access to funds for importers to bring in their imports, and that even the few banks that give do so at cut- throat interest rates.
According to him, the struggle to meet commitments to the banks and also make profit is what causes investors to hike their charges and thereby making the ports to be very expensive.
The CRFFN chairman also said that cumbersome government policies for the sector are another issue that has made reduction of charges difficult.
 “If a ship is coming to Nigeria, it may be just twice in a year, maybe it has spent one to two months on the high seas and getting to our port with all the government policies, by the time it off-loads and goes back, it must have spent seven months, but if that same ship goes to other parts of the world, it might have gone five trips” he said.
 “Everybody wants to make their turn- around on time, a container can stay in the port for three days before it is successfully scanned but the owner of the terminal is charging you demurrage, so even the importer is paying more than any other importer in the whole world”, he argued.
The CRFFN chief however stressed that for the port to be vibrant and investor- friendly, attitudinal change is what is required. “We need attitudinal change for everybody working in the port, without this we will still be repeating ourselves and saying the same thing over and over”. This is even my main focus in CRFFN; thank God I am here as the chairman of CRFFN today and my focus is to give the freight forwarders attitudinal change”, he promised.
He said that the main reason why corrupt practices still persist in the port is because people have no knowledge of what they are doing, “you need training first of all to be able to have that attitudinal change” he said.
He also used the opportunity to explain plans which the council intends to roll out for the benefit of all freight forwarders saying, “we are thinking of setting up a pension fund and an insurance scheme for freight forwarders, both life and health insurance, we are also thinking of establishing a micro finance banking scheme in order to help our members”.
“It’s all about focus, when we started our registration exercise, people were looking at us as if we didn’t know what we are doing, but today it has become a success and the first register is completed. However, 70 per cent of those who registered are school certificate holders and we intend to embark on a compulsory refresher course for them all” he said.