Ex-Shippers’ Council boss, Bello cautions against cargo examination at Lekki Port

As the Lekki deep seaport nears completion and commercial operations are expected to commence by fourth quarter of 2022, the former Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), Mr. Hassan Bello, has warned against examination of cargoes at the port by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).

Bello advised in an exclusive interview with Maritime Today Online in Lagos on Friday that cargoes arriving the Lekki port should be evacuated to off-dock facilities for the expected Customs examination.

This, according to him, will help prevent the problem of long cargo dwell-time at the Lekki Port, as being experienced at the existing Lagos ports in Apapa, the Lagos Port Complex (LPC) and Tin-Can Island Port Complex (TCIPC).

In his words: “There should not be any examination of cargo at the port of Lekki, cargo should go to off dock either in Ogun State, Oyo State or other bonded warehouses. We should leave Lekki port to just receive goods and send it to the dry ports.

That is another revolutionary thing we have to do. There should not be Customs at the Lekki Port for examination. Goods should not be examined at the port. Port is a transit place. You just transfer it to an off-dock facility, let the Customs go there and examine the cargo. We have to depart from all what is happening in Apapa and Tin-Can so that we have a new port otherwise it will be the same thing.

“Why would you go and have 21 days waiting for your cargo to exit? The cargo dwell time at the Lagos ports is one of the longest while the average is seven days in the region and that is what we should aim for. One day, it should even be zero dwell time, cargoes moving as soon as they come and that is one thing, I will want them to have a critical look at Lekki.”

Bello, who described the LPC and TCIPC as relics, said that the Lekki Port, upon completion, will be a transition to modernity and transformational for the country and the entire West Africa subregion.

“The Lekki seaport will be a transition to modernity then we will abandon the Apapa and Tin can port to their own devices. So, it will be either they change or they close, because people will have options.

Our economy must be matched with infrastructure, and, that is why the Lekki Port is very important. At 16-metre draught, all the big ships will come and we will be the load centre, distributing to others. Afterall, where is the market? It is here in Nigeria. So, for me, Tin-Can and Apapa ports, honestly, they are relics, because modern ports do not operate with shallow draught. With Lekki Port, you need less dredging; unlike Tin-Can and Apapa that need capital and maintenance dredging all the time.

“So, we need to develop more ports. Developing more ports is a definition of our ambition as a country. The moment we say we are going to have Lekki Port, then the whole situation will change, which means you are not going to be receiver of goods, but you are going to be the one to distribute them. And the more throughputs we get, the more we create employment, the more our infrastructure will increase and the more you see us having standards.

“All our exports will go through the port, because, now, exporters have a limit to access the port. But when Lekki comes on stream, we make sure that this does not happen. Because it is going to be a modern port, everything will be digitalised. Unlike what you have here with the presence of people around the port, because the port now is seeming unsightly,” he said.

The former NSC boss added that in addition to long cargo dwell time and shallow draught, poor infrastructure around the ports and lack of automation are other factors creating bottlenecks at the ports and major reasons why the ports are not competitive.

“Our port may be not competitive because a port is as good as how soon or how fast it can clear its cargo out. That we still have problems with in terms of infrastructure and access to the port and automation,” he said.