Shippers Council signs agreement with NRC to facilitate cargo movement via rail

The Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) to facilitate the movement of goods from the port to the hinterland.

The idea is to enable the NSC and the NRC to work together towards ensuring the efficient carriage of cargo from the seaports to the Inland Dry Ports (IDPs).

Speaking in Lagos during a one-day stakeholders sensitisation programme on ‘Limitations to Rail Transportation of Cargo in Nigeria,’ organised by the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, Pius Akutah, executive secretary of the NSC, expressed concern over the increasing cost of doing business at the nation’s seaports due to the lack of a functional rail system for cargo evacuation.

He said the lack of a functional rail system to move cargo to the hinterland has been impeding the ease of doing business and creating problems in the shipping industry.

He said it results in congestion at the seaports, delays vessel discharge, and increases turnaround time for ships.

According to him, the development compels importers and exporters to pay high demurrage and also results in a high number of trucks and tankers moving on the road, causing traffic gridlock and a high cost of doing business.

Read also: Nigerian Shippers Council harps on inland dry ports to ease congestion

“The Council’s initiative through closed inter-agency collaboration particularly with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) is to ensure enhanced intermodal connections and connectivity; fast-track delivery of cargo and ensure cost-effective means of transportation of goods to the hinterland,” he said.

Also speaking, Fidet Okhiria, managing director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, said it is cost-effective to use the railway to move cargo compared to the road as moving a container from Lagos to Kano costs N1.2 million by rail and as much as N1.5 million by road.

He said a standard gauge train can take 35 trailers off the road by moving 35 containers at a go and that the number can be doubled to 70 containers.

The NRC boss however expressed concerns that Nigerian importers and exporters have been showing apathy to using the railway as it took NRC a long time to gather 17 containers that were recently moved from Apapa Port to Dala Inland Dry Port in Kano.

He said the NRC has been encouraging the Manufacturing Association of Nigeria to come together to move their goods in bulk. He urged the terminal operators to also provide enabling environments for importers and exporters to use the railway.

“When we use the railway to move cargo, our roads will be freer, goods will get to the market at a cheaper rate because going by rail will make the end product and the raw materials get to the various factories at a cheaper rate,” he said.

Meanwhile, Akinwunmi Oshilowo, director of Operations and Commercial Services at NRC, said that most of the railway assets inside Apapa Port are being vandalised by unknown persons.

He said that NRC locomotives also face challenges while accessing the ports due to too many trucks clogging the railway right of way inside the Apapa Bulk Terminal Limited (ABTL) section of the Apapa Port.

This, according to him, makes bringing NRC locomotives into the APM Terminals in Apapa a nightmare.

Read also: Nigerian Shippers Council to streamline port operations for efficiency

Earlier, Ify Okolue, director of the Inland Transport Services Department at the Nigerian Shippers Council, said the programme aims to identify the challenges facing the Nigerian Railway Corporation’s infrastructural development and the role of the Nigeria Customs Service towards enabling the seamless movement of cargo and reducing the cost of doing business at the port.

She said the idea is to proffer practicable solutions to the identified problems and open up discussions on the possibility of Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the provision of rail transport services to promote a multimodal approach to cargo evacuation to the hinterland.

She said it will promote seamless movement of cargo from the seaports to the Inland Dry Ports in Nigeria.

According to her, the NSC and the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy are committed to creating an enabling environment for the actualisation of seamless movement of cargo by rail from the seaports to the Inland Dry Ports and the hinterland.