The National President of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Chief Tony Iju Nwabunike has said that the Kaduna inland dry ports is yarning for patronage not because the borders have been open since but because nobody has actually helped the stakeholders that are supposed to make that place viable understand the principles of dry port.
Nwabunike who made this assertion last week when he featured at the roundtable organized by the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN) also noted that true bill lading had been source of problems on low patronage of Kaduna dry port.
He explained that the Kaduna inland dry port was witnessing low patronage because so many shipping lines that were supposed to be giving it TBL were not doing that adding that so many importers wanted to import and have the final destination of their goods and services at dry port without necessarily coming to Lagos, Port-Harcourt, Warri or Calabar to look for their goods rather to wait at the Kaduna terminal to pick their goods.
“But you can’t pick your good if you do not have a true bill lading that says dedicated to Kaduna. Now the question is this, why is the TBL not given to importer? Because we met some importers, we held a stakeholders’ meeting, they told us they want to use that place, they don’t want to be coming to Lagos because of gridlock or to Port-Harcourt because of bad roads, that they want their consignments to get to Kaduna dry port. Now the shipping companies says, we can factor freight charges from China, for example, to Nigeria at 3,600 twenty footers and 4,800 forty footers but we cannot charge at any land rate that is going to Kaduna dry port because you know they are supposed to charge upfront so that they can pay and take delivery at Kaduna dry port.
“So, the logistics becomes the problem according to them, they don’t have enough capacity to take the goods to the dry port and there is no locomotive wagons from the Nigerian Railway Corporation. So, these have become the bane of their transportation system. But we are looking forward in seeing where we can in partnership with a very big logistics company where we can have a serious bilateral relationship and agreement with all he shipping companies so that they can provide them vehicles that will be permanently, on a particular price for a good number of weeks or six months agreement”, he stated.
Nwabunike who is also the former Chairman of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) while identifying lack of sensitization of the stakeholders as another reason why the dry port was witnessing low patronage however assured that the management of the dry port had commenced action in this regard.
According to him, “That took us to Niger Republic two times within one month. We have gone there because, if you look at the Nigerian map, you will see that Niger is sitting on 1,500 kilometers across Nigeria and they have too many approved borders and uncountable unapproved borders. So, we have gone there to sensitize them that they can take delivery of their goods under transire, import through Nigeria, Kaduna precisely. Come to Kaduna, do the due diligence, take your consignment to the border post. The government of Nigeria through the customs will hand over your documents, hand over your container to the Niger government, go on there and do the examination and then take delivery of the goods.
“Kaduna is less than five hundred kilometers to Niger Republic but almost two thousand kilometers from Cotonou to that place but why are they actually importing from there (Cotonou)? Because of two factors namely; Cotonou does not ask them for duty or do unstuffing of goods. So, we are putting sensitization as the second agenda like I told you, the first agenda is that the shipping companies should work according to the guidelines of destination through Kaduna.
He continued, “The third one is, why is it that many northern state governors who are actually importing fertilizers, tractors or machineries and who are importing one or two things are not patronizing Kaduna dry port? We are asking the federal government to compel the northern state governors to import goods and designate it for Kaduna dry port instead of further congesting our ports which are already congested.”
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