‘Our Focus is Saving Port Users’ Time and Money’

Acting Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Mohammed Bello-Koko, bares his mind on some issues, including over-stretched ports facilities, efforts to reboot the electronic truck call-up system and the agency’s effort to tackle the perennial Apapa gridlock. Excerpts:

How operationally efficient are Nigeria’s seaports? Are they efficient enough to prevent the congestion we see outside?

The two seaports in Lagos, the Lagos Ports Complex and Tin Can Island Ports Complex are currently operating far beyond their installed capacity. What it simply means is that if they were built to handle 500,000 TEUs for instance, probably they are now handling about 700, 000 TEUs. You will also notice that the city has caught up with the ports so there is no space to expand them. What we need to do is to improve on the activities in the ports, in terms of efficiency. In 2006 when NPA concessioned the terminals, there was a development plan between the NPA and the terminal that included both physical development and then deployment of equipment. The terminal operators have met those agreements and everything has evolved but there is a need for bigger and more efficient equipment, better Information Technology IT systems and so on and so forth.
So, we have seen an improvement in terms of efficiency, there is an increase in efficiency. But there is room for more. We have observed system downtime in one or two of the terminals, especially the APM Terminals, which is one of the terminals. Whenever the APM Terminal system is down, it causes a lot of backlog at the back in terms of traffic.

Actually, what we have done was to sit down with the terminal operators and tell them that they need to improve on their operations; we have Monitoring and Regulatory Department in the NPA, which has an index that on a monthly basis we look at the operations of the terminal operators and we grade them based on their operations and we also go ahead at the end of the quarter to sit with them and tell them where they have decreased and where they have improved and we have seen a better synergy between what the terminal operators are doing and the shipping lines, because some of them also have affiliated shipping lines working with them.

To improve the operations within the port we came up with a policy that established empty container holding bays and we mandated all shipping lines to ensure that they have a holding bay outside the port premises for their empties. This is to ensure that you, as an importer, when you take away your cargo from the port, you go to your business premises or warehouse and you offload it, you should not bring the empty container into the port, you should rather take it into the holding bay.

The second thing is that we mandated that for every vessel that comes into Nigeria, when it is sailing out, it must take away at least 80% of the total quantity of containers it brought in either as empty or as export cargo because we were beginning to see that Nigeria was being turned into more like a dumping ground for empty containers and, to a large extent, that has worked because those empty containers have been removed. But we are ensuring that regularly, that is being monitored and efficiency has increased.

How did you feel when you assumed duty as MD with this seeming intractable congestion on the roads?

The first thing I did on assumption of duty was to look at the current system in place, which is the electronic call up system, also called ‘Eto’. I paid a visit to the main truck park itself, which is located at the Lily Pond Terminal, Ijora to see what was happening. I went round and I went into the ports. The idea was for me to have first-hand understanding on what the problem is and we held a meeting with TTP, which is the company that deployed ‘Eto’ system platform on behalf of the NPA, and we analysed what has been happening from February to May. We observed lapses, one of which was the non-deployment of the electronic call up system Information Technology IT system that should have been in place in some locations in the satellite truck parks. We also looked at the non-deployment of physical infrastructure such as the bollards, the automated gates and we sat down with them in several meetings. We gave them ultimatums to deploy the infrastructure or lose the contracts. The essence of ‘Eto’ was actually to streamline the movement of cargo in and out of the ports, reduce human interference, and speed up the process of cargo delivery. As long as there is human interference there would be delays, there would be extortion and so on.

What we need to do is to work on the human interference, stealing of Eto tickets and so on, because we have a situation where a trucker is along the route and he has his Eto ticket and at the next bus stop, a security agent stops him to say let me see your Eto ticket and the Eto ticket number is 123456 and probably he is so many kilometres away and they cram that number and the call a truck that is ahead that doesn’t have an Eto ticket and give that truck that same Eto number and that person will enter a certain building around Apapa and probably in 15 mins to 20 mins they also get a plate number printed for them and they merge it and get access into the port. Shortly after the real owner of the number now shows up and his ticket has been used and that is why we have now requested that TTP should change this to QR code, when you have a QR code we will be able to scan it and you go through, you can just cram a QR code.

We also read recently that there is N100 Million extortion daily at the ports. How can you track those behind these?

First of all, what we have discovered is that there are security officials that have been working within that area, we call it the red zone, which is the Tin Can- Apapa area that has probably been posted there for four, five or six years and they are still there. We have requested that they should be posted out of that location and bring in a new set of people that will actually and truly work for Nigeria. But let me also state this clearly that we have had the cooperation of the Navy, Army, Police and everyone that is involved in this; they have made efforts to ensure that this stops and I know that actions were taken by the Navy and I thank them for that, I know that Police also took action to reduce that, when you have errand officers at times that are off duty and they show up in uniforms with guns and they perpetrate destructions. We also punished some NPA security men that were indicted.

How far have you been able to curtail the Apapa gridlock?

I can tell you that with the deployment of infrastructure under the Electronic Call-Up system for trucks, we have been able to eliminate the Apapa gridlock by more than 80 per cent and this is verifiable. In addition to the deployment of the Eto platform, we are currently promoting multi-modal transport systems through the use of barges for the movement of cargo in and out of the ports; this development has tremendously reduced congestion at most terminals, thereby improving ports efficiency.

The little remnants of the gridlock in some areas in Apapa are due to the very poor state of the Tin Can Port-Mile2 corridor, which is under construction and when the road rehabilitation is completed, the little traffic you see now would be completely eliminated. Following the deployment of infrastructure under the e-call up system, traffic on the Apapa-Ijora axis has reduced by over 80 per cent; you can take a trip to that corridor, but as I said earlier, most of the road networks on the Tin Can, Cocoa Nut –Mile 2 axis, are at various stages of reconstructions and so the eto infrastructure has not been deployed in the area.

On a scale of 1-100%, how many containers are moved in and out of the ports by barges?

We currently have about 59 barge licences that were issued to different companies that applied to be given these licenses and they have various sizes of barges and some of them are either self-propelled while others use tug boats. What we did was to encourage the movement of cargoes whether the import or empty containers from one part of the port to the other or to off dock locations and bonded terminals, we can say approximately about 10-15% of the cargo are moved by barges. There is an increase now and that is very minimal, imagine if you are taking off 500 trucks off the road and if you look at it in quantum, we held a meeting with barge operators and we said we look at the safety standards of the barges, we need to increase the activities of barge operators and we are encouraging them to come together and find funding. If we need to get involved we need to look at the quality of their barges, no problem, but just as we have created minimum safety standards for trucks, we have just created one for barge operators.

Approximately, how many containers can a barge carry?

It depends on the size of the barge which is between 20-50, there are bigger size of barges that are being brought in by some of the shipping terminals operators that actually can carry more containers, we have seen applications that people have sent in in the past few weeks with barges that actually will eventually carry about 70 containers or so, but we are being careful here, we need to ensure the quality and safety of the barges. There are also issues with barges operating at night and we felt that wasn’t very safe and we have stopped that.

There are so many security agencies at the ports. How do they impinge on NPA’s operations?

Let’s remember that in May 2017 there was this presidential directive in terms of Ease of Doing Business and the essence of that was to ensure reduction of bureaucratic bottlenecks that affect operations within the seaports. It is also to improve transparency within the ports and also for the ports to operate on a 24-hour basis. All the government agencies working within the ports are supposed to work together, they are supposed to collapse their activities into one like an umbrella. I think about eight agencies of the government or so were allowed to work within the ports; when a vessel comes in, they are supposed to go and board the vessel at the same time and currently I can confirm to you that we have that in place and then there is supposed to be a bus-in bus-out both for dock workers and what have you; the NPA is the agency of government that is providing for the movement of vessel in and out. It also inspects the vessels. So, such collaboration has actually improved tremendously; we have seen that it has reduced the waiting time of vessels before the terminal operators start offloading the vessel so that collaboration is in place and that has improved drastically. As for multiple government agencies having different checkpoints, that is in place in some ports, you have instances where an agency of government has a checkpoint here and then another one and another one but collaboration with these government agencies has helped in such incidences. There are cases whereby a container has been inspected at point A that’s where it is supposed to be inspected and then another government agency stops it and then inspects it again and keeps it there for 30 minutes.

There are other seaports in the eastern part of the country, why can’t we utilise them to reduce pressure on those in Lagos?

There are many other ports outside Lagos. Naturally, we have the Calabar, Warri, Onne and Rivers Ports. Also, let me clear this fact, NPA cannot decide for consignees (importers) where they will take their cargoes to, and we understand that about 70 per cent of the cargoes coming into Nigeria comes in through Lagos. There is a high concentration of industries probably whether it is Lagos or Ogun and so on. It is only most likely that any importer of any raw material that is going to those factories in Lagos or Ogun will actually bring them in through the Lagos Ports. However, what we have done is to offer tariff incentives in those port locations so that it will encourage shipping lines and importers to also bring in their cargoes through those ports and it has started working and we have seen a gradual careful increase in the tonnage and we are hoping there will be a jump but we are not seeing that jump yet, however, within this month, we will also start looking at the tariffs that we have offered in those locations, we have encouraged the use of flat bottom vessels to come into Calabar and other locations and we have seen that that has started coming in.

The three seaports have common issues, firstly Warri Port is about 109kms away from the ocean so that means from the beginning of the channel to the port in Warri is about 109kms, the Calabar Port is 101kms, Port Harcourt Port, Rivers State is about 69 lms and Lagos is about 9.2kms. The implication here is like you travelling from the fairway buoy which is a market where you say this is the beginning of the ocean and this is the end of it and that’s where NPA’s pilots brings in the vessels to berth at port, it means travel time is longer, maintaining the channel is more expensive, siltation is also very high and it also means that there are security issues in that part of the country unfortunately. The ports in Lagos you can take in and out your vessel anytime of the day or night but in that part of the country there is a little window in the morning and afternoon where you can take in or out the vessels.

Currently, NPA is working with the Federal Ministry of Transport which has requested NPA to sit down with the terminal operators to think out how to reconstruct the ports in Lagos and reconstruction here means not just the physical infrastructure. You also need to have better equipment, better IT systems that will improve efficiency and that discussion has been going on.

What assurance can you give to Nigerians that things will be better soon?

Let me just say something statistically. In May, we had probably about 20,000 trucks in and out in Apapa and Tin Can axis, but by last month, we had over 50,000 and that shows here that there is an improvement.

Even with all this infrastructure, how do you ensure that the truckers comply so that the system works?

We met with the truckers about three weeks ago and I asked them to speak their minds and that nobody would penalise them and that was when they came with the report that an account was opened and that money is being collected through POS and we realised that the truckers were not using the app on their phone rather they go to the POS and that when you pay the TTP, then you collect a commission. This is why we are coming up with sensitisation to help them sort this out and we will flush out all the bad eggs among them so that the system will work.

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