The National Director, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT Nigeria, Mr. Paul Ndibe has said that unless there is a synergy between the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, the Federal Ministry of Work, Power and Housing and the Federal Government to facilitate the Inland Container Depot (ICD) Projects across the country, Nigeria may record little o no success in this regard.
Ndibe who made this known in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos also said that the synergy was very necessary to see that the rail connections that lead to the ports are free and open so that when the imports come, they would have free access to these depots where the clearing would take place thereby reducing the dwell time of ships as well as the transaction time for containers and then improve the logistics performance index of the country.
“The issue of inland container depot had been on for a long a while. It is good news that the Nigerian Shippers’ Council is pushing that the concessionaires who were expected to develop these inland containers depots must develop them within a time frame or lose the license to do so. May be that had influenced the new things we are seeing in terms of investments going in that direction and some of them are returning to sites developing these inland containers. I expect that for purposes of inland transportation, what are the linkages to these ICDs? If the major linkage is rail, there should be a coordination of efforts so that while they are developing the inland container depots, there should be a rail linkage to these ICDs so that by the time the development of the activities at the inland container depots are being completed, the rail connections are also being completed. That is on the one side.
“On the other side, there should be a synergy between the Nigerian Shippers’ Council and the Nigerian Railway Corporation to facilitate this project and also a synergy between the Nigerian Shippers’ Council and the Nigerian Railway Corporation and the federal government on the other level to see that the rail connections that lead to the ports are free and open so that when the imports come, I mean containers or crude, they will have free access to these depots where the clearing will take place and in that case, the dwell time of ships, the transaction time for containers will reduce at the ports and then that will improve the logistics performance index of the country. That is on one level.
“On the other level, if this fails to happen, it means the dependence will be more on the road. Now, what is the nature of the road network? How reinforced are these roads to these inland containers depots given that there will be additional traffic on those roads on account of the existence of these inland containers depots. What is the level of interaction between the Nigerian Shippers’ Council and the Ministry of Works in order to see that those roads are reinforced? So that we don’t have containers stranded on the road on account damage done on the road. What is the Nigerian Shippers’ Council doing in terms of Truck Transit Parks or depot? And then what is the regulation for the drivers’ driving period and the nature of the trucks that will carry these containers to the depot?
“If what they are doing will relate to all these concerns raised above, fine, I will say it is a step in the right direction. But if they are looking at the linkages without having direct communications with all the agencies that will facilitate the project, then there might be a problem”, he stated.
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