Steve Agbota
Nigeria’s premier seaports – Tin Can Island and Apapa – in Lagos State have been faced with numerous infrastructural and other man-made challenges. These have tended to cripple economic activities in the two nation’s main gateways.
Besides their poor road and rail networks, the quay, buildings, most operational equipment and yard are currently heavily congested, which is causing severe insecurity, pilferage, delays in cargo clearance and other forms of inefficiencies in cargo handling.
The poor state of infrastructure such as the failed access roads to the ports that resulted to what is now infamously termed: “Apapa gridlock”, has a paralysing effect on socio-economic activities within the axis, as well as the evacuation of cargoes from the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports.
Truck drivers have turned every open space within and around the port area into a trailer park. The gridlock has also negatively affected operations at the ports and economy of Lagos State.
The business of import and export has also suffered significantly due to huge evacuation costs, as trucks spend weeks waiting to gain access into the port terminal. Several businesses have shut down and thousands of houses and offices are evacuated and now standing empty.
Sunday Sun investigation revealed that the menace created by gridlock in Apapa is costing the government an estimated N140 billion in revenue weekly with the economy losing more than N20 billion daily while almost 800 companies have closed shops.
Recently, the Organised Private Sector (OPS) said that Nigeria has lost about N6 trillion across different sectors due to the Apapa gridlock and called for urgent infrastructure development at the Lagos ports.
To arrest the challenges, several measures have been put in place by the Federal Government, which included a presidential task force saddled with the responsibility of evacuating articulated vehicles off the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports, introducing evacuation of overtime cargo to Ikorodu Lighter Terminal, 72 hours clearance, reconstruction of the bad roads within the Apapa corridor and turning Lillypond Terminal into a trailer park.
The road linking Ijora to Apapa, which gulped N4.5 billion has been fixed by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Dangote and Flour Mills and this has eased traffic to some extent within that axis. Meanwhile, the Tin Can Island Port is undergoing reconstruction and expected to be completed before this year runs out.
Despite the approval of the contract for the construction of the port access roads, operators said that the situation is still posing a threat to lives and operations at the port as trailers trying to access the port still block the road from Second Rainbow down to the Tin Can axis.
Some port operators and users who spoke with Sunday Sun said that with the new measures and policies put in place, businesses are beginning to pick up at the Apapa Port axis. But thousands of houses and offices are still empty even as the prices of property are still down by 30 per cent due to the gridlock.
The challenges
Speaking with Sunday Sun, port analyst and President of National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Mr Lucky Amiwero, said that the challenges have been there, but that the roads are not the only problems, adding that the problem Nigeria is having at the ports is too much concentration of tank farms.
“Part of the problems we have are the trailers and the holding bays. They have been able to create some trailer parks, but the holding bays are still not there. The roads are still used as holding bays for trucks, empty containers and the containers going into the ports. So, those are the challenges and all these things are as a result of how the concession was being worked out; all these things were not put into consideration.
“The challenges are still there. It is quite difficult and when you look at the construction of the roads, it is restricting some areas while some other areas are moving. The impact is quite much because in Nigeria, people don’t look at the economic cost of anything now; people just try to manage any situation until we are out of it. So, the challenges are quite enormous. It is not easy because people like us cannot go into our offices for now. We have been cut off from the whole system and what we do is that most of us have to abandon our cars and use Okada and ferry,” he said.
He pointed out that even the ferry is a risk because many people have lost their lives using that means of transportation just as people are dying everyday through Okada accidents.
He lamented over the risks these means of moving around pose to port operators and users, saying that it is a situation they cannot help.
He decried that “as the port does not have any rail system or waterfront, we have a lot of problems here; the congestion is huge. The challenges are high and it has been so complex and difficult for port users.”
Also, Chairman of Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), Chief Remi Ogungbemi, said that presently, work is ongoing on the roads, but noting that the activities of transporters (truck owners and drivers) around the ports and access roads can never be a solution. He advised that government should look for permanent solutions that will be sustainable.
According to him, the only thing different from what other transporters have been doing is what NPA did.
He said that NPA allowed Lillypond to serve as a transit park, which is the best thing that has ever happened to the transporters and truck operators in the maritime industry.
He stressed: “And at the same time, I’m not that impressed with what is going on because we’ve had many task force members that came, inflicted various degrees of injury on transporters and left. They leave transporters abject so I don’t see solution in what they are doing not until they are able to put in place a measure that will be regulating the movement of trucks going in or coming out of the ports. We need an automated electronic system. What we are doing now is manual call-up and anything that has human intervention will certainly have favouritism.”
Doing business at the ports
Amiwero said that there is little respite in the situation at the ports despite ongoing rehabilitation in the ports, but stated that the Tin Can Island Port is highly affected as well as the Apapa axis, adding that the economic cost and pressure have been huge.
According to him, the Apapa road has been fixed, but port users are still confronted with the same problems because the challenges do not all stem from bad roads.
He explained that part of the problems have to do with procedures at the ports too.
He noted: “There is no holding bay, trailer parks and the port is not being controlled by NPA, but by terminal operators. So, there are a lot of things the government has to put into consideration before you can ease the problem of Apapa. Government just has to bring in experts to look at how they can work out the procedures, the systems and put things in order.”
The Director General at Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Muda Yusuf, observed that the gridlock is beginning to ease off gradually, but added that it would take time for all the challenges to be completely fixed because the issues are multidimensional.
He explained that the roads from Tin Can to Mile 2 would take time to be fixed, noting, “what I will say is that there have been some marginal impacts in what the government is doing especially in managing the traffic.
“There are issues of the roads themselves that need to be fixed and there are bigger issues such as the capacity of the ports to handle the volume of cargo and all of that. Those issues can only be solved in the medium to long term. In the short-term, at least, we have seen the gradual easing off of the problem. Before now, we had trailers queuing and stretching up to Western Avenue and all of that, which have been removed. So, there has been a marginal improvement.”
Expectations
The LCCI boss, Yusuf, said that 70 to 80 per cent of cargoes within the country come to Apapa and Tin Can Island ports, PTML and others while Lillypond has been phased out.
He stated that Lagos ports control almost 70 or 85 per cent of cargoes within the country, adding that “the expectation is that the ports are tools. If tools are not made efficient, we will have problems. In trading across borders, we are the last in Africa and we’ll continue to be the last.
“There is a seven per cent surcharge on cargo since 1986, which is supposed to be used for the development of the ports. There is money there and I don’t understand what the government is using the money for. Yes, Shippers Council has a share there, Export Promotion Council has a share there, and NPA is having a share of four per cent from the seven per cent. That four per cent or thereabout should be used for the development of the ports. It is not NPA money, it is money allocated for specific project and development of the ports. Now that NPA is no more in port operations, they should have been involved in trying to put things right.
“So, the expectation is that we must make our ports easier for cargo to go in and come out. Accessing the port is a very big problem. You will find out that people spend so much money to access the ports. Some people spend as much as N300,000 to access the port. I think the situation is getting better for now.”
He said that there is need for improvement on that so that the nation’s ports would benefit from the cargo throughput coming into the country because other ports like Togo, Benin Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon have taken over Nigeria’s cargo and most of Nigerian borders are still legal entry points.
“I believe we need to sit down and bring experts to really rejig the ports completely and bring the process back. Even though you build the roads and you don’t put the process in order, we will still have the same problem all over again.
“Our expectations are that we need to fix the key roads that link the ports, which is Apapa, Tin Can, Mile 2 to Oshodi. Secondly, we need to fix the rail system so that we are not carrying too much of cargo by road. We want to see a situation where we move our cargo by rail right from the ports. Thirdly, we want to see our refinery work so that we are not importing too much of petroleum products through the ports. If the refinery is working, you will not be importing so much petroleum products that will be creating problems around the port.
“Then, we need to resuscitate our pipelines so that even if we bring in petroleum products, we can use pipelines to transport them outside the ports to the various depots around the country. Then we need to invest in the expansion of our ports in Nigeria. The capacity of Tin Can and Apapa ports can no longer handle the volumes of imports we have in Nigeria,” Yusuf said.
Also the AMATO Chairman, Chief Ogungbemi, urged the “NPA to endeavour to put the necessary measures in place just like is done in the banking industry. The banking sector has gone online; even I can’t remember the last time I visited the banking hall. I do all my transactions online. Likewise, the airlines are also online. We should use modern technology to address this problem because it has grown beyond what the human contact can do. We need to get out of the present analogue and move on to digital.”
Also speaking, an exporter and the National Publicity Secretary of the National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), Mr Sotonye Anga, said that the association has applauded the ongoing work, but noted that the work needs to be hastened.
“So far, so good, we acknowledge all the efforts put together to see how to improve ease of doing business with regards to shipment of our commodities. I think for now business is surviving. We are able to do our business although it has not been 100 per cent efficient, but at least, we are surviving.
“We are still studying the situation and work is still going on, but there is delay here and there. We are surviving and business is going on, but it can always be better. We want it to be better and better considering the fact that whatever we produce in Nigeria is also produced in other countries and we need to be efficient in terms of cargo delivery so that we will be able to meet our contractual obligations and deliver on contract because nobody cares whether you have issues with Apapa and Tin Can ports. What our buyers overseas want is to perform on contract,” he said.
Anga said that the ease of doing business, which is very important for every stakeholder, is NCAN’s priority as well, adding that there is need to be efficient in terms of shipment, transit time from the warehouses into ports.
“So, that efficiency is very critical for us because it goes to count on our overall performance and credibility and the bottom line. It affects the nation and our national reputation because if we are able to deliver our export commodity efficiently and fast, the credit goes to the country and it will rate the performance index that is very critical high. We cannot afford to go backward, we should remain forward and we should be more and more efficient,” he said.