Nigerian Ports Are Still Very Expensive, Says NPA MD

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) last week revealed that despite concessioning of the nation’s ports about five years ago, the  cost of doing business in Nigerian ports is still very high and that this has negated the main objective of the port reforms.
This statement, made last week in Lagos by the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Alhaji Omar Suleiman is a confirmation of what the authority’s Lagos Port Complex manager; Mr. Joshua Asanga had said late last year in Lagos that the dwell time of cargoes at the ports are still very high.
Omar Suleiman reiterated this fact while speaking at a stakeholder’s forum last week. He however attributed the long cargo dwell time and the attendant high cost of clearing to actions of importers of consignments. According to him, rather than clear the cargoes out of the port promptly after arrival; they stylishly turned the ports into their private warehouses.
The NPA helmsman noted with concern that the price of doing shipping business in Nigeria is about 10 time higher than what it cost in other neighboring ports and that this might discourage prospective investors from looking forward to coming to do business in the country.
According to him, “shipping in Nigeria is four to five times higher than the price in Cotonou, and we are yet to find the reason for that, the cargo price in Nigeria is also high, the price of hiring a vessel is also high and we have to look into it, if we want the sector to move forward”.
Suleiman also re-echoed that the reason for the port concession was to inject private investment into the maritime industry and that despite all the commitments that have been made by the terminal operators who have been able to bring in new cranes and other equipments, cargo dwell time is still too high.
”Everyone of us can see that a lot has been achieved by the terminal operators, they have brought new cranes and equipment and the ports are also sanitized now because you don’t find a lot of people in the ports”, he observed.
“But still, the cargo dwell time is still 24 to 25days, we need to find a mechanism to see that we go down, reason for this is because most of the importers have turned the port to their store houses and we need to ensure that any consignment that comes into the port, the consignees must hustle to remove it, ports are transit areas and not warehouses”, he warned
Despite these shortfalls, he appreciated the fact that the waiting time of vessels is no longer as high as it used to be, adding that “we have been able to reduce the waiting time of vessels to two days, it used to be about 24 days, the only vessels you see outside now are ISAN vessels”.