Four years after the SIFAX Group-led consortium won the bid for the concession of the Terminal B, Warri Old Port, the activities have been very slow. In this piece, ANOZIE EGOLE looks at the challenges and the way forward
It’s safe to say that Nigeria is blessed with a vast coastline that is an envy of many countries. The country has 853 nautical miles of coastline located on the corridor of Gulf of Guinea and the Bight of Benin, 200 nautical miles of an exclusive economic zone, 30,000 kilometres of waterways comprising over 50 rivers, eight of the 36 states with littoral status, coupled with vast and fast growing population estimated at over 200m. The country has every reason to be a force to be reckoned with in the global maritime community.
With so many functional seaports and the Lekki Deep Seaport billed to start operations in September with estimated revenue of N201bn, and 170,000 jobs, the project is no doubt one of the biggest things that will happen in the West African region in the maritime space.
However, in a bid to ensure proper management of the ports, the Federal Government came up with the idea of concessioning some of them to terminal operators. That was what brought the idea of the port concessioning of 2016.
Precisely in April 18th, 2018, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, in the presence of the National Council for Privatisation, Nigerian Ports Authority and the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, announced the Sifax Group-led consortium, Ocean and Cargo Terminal Services Limited as the winner of the bid process for the concession of the Terminal B, Warri Old Port.
The concession, which was valued at $25m, was for a period of 25 years at an annual lease fee of $1.621m, in addition to the entry fee and monthly throughput fee chargeable on the volume of cargo handled.
Four years after
Four years down the lane, not much activity has been recorded at the port as users lament its inability to allow larger vessels to berth. They complain that only wet cargo vessels come to the terminal.
A source close to SIFAX told The PUNCH that though operations had started at the terminal, they were not on a large scale.
The source added that construction work was still ongoing at the terminal, adding that there were staff members of SIFAX at the terminal, and clearing processes were still taking place there.
Challenges
The president of the Shippers Association Delta State, Austin Egbegbadia, said that shippers were not happy with what was happening at the ports.
“You see, the issue of the port is a very long one. We are not happy with what we are seeing. We say the port is functional but only for wet cargoes that are carrying petroleum products. Though the port is bringing money to the government, our concern is the interest of everybody and how it affects the economy of the state and the people where the port is sited. And it is when liner vessels that carry general cargoes or containerlised cargoes start coming in on a regular basis that we know that people are now employed.”
Egbegbadia added that the needed jobs would not be created with wet cargoes.
“When it is wet cargo, it is all mechanised. When the vessel arrives, it picks a pump and pumps straight into the pipeline. Nobody is employed, so it does not provide gainful employment to anybody and doesn’t affect the economy of the state positively. But if general cargoes come in, there are jobs for everybody, from the vulcaniser to everybody. Even shippers like us cannot say they want to export anything from here because it does not go from Warri port.”
The founder of the National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents, Mr Lucky Amiwero, said that for the nation’s seaports to be able to compete with ports from neighboring countries, the draught must be above 16meters.
“Well, the problem is that when you build a port in Warri and all those places, you must be able to have more than 16-meter draft because the ships that come in today are ships with more than 16-meter draft, and the ports that we have today that are competing with us are ports with more than 16-meter drafts. Ports like Cotonuo have increased their ports draft level; Ghana is going almost 19-meter draft level, as do Cameroon and Togo. So, Nigeria is left between 11 meters and once you are between that level, you cannot accommodate bigger vessels, which we call Panama vessels.
“These bigger vessels are vessels that can take 20, 000 twenty equivalent units.”
Consequences
According to a ship owner, Dada Labinjo, “They concessioned the ports to themselves and the Federal Government also gave money for dredging. So, they all spent the money and they didn’t do anything, which is why till tomorrow, Calabar port cannot take ships of more than 7-meter drafts. Warri port receives ships with nothing more than 5-meter drafts.
“During my last trip, I sailed into Warri port, I think it was between 1996 and 1997. That was the last time I went in there and I remember I touched a button but was lucky that by the special grace of God, I didn’t become grounded. If the port is shallow, no deep vessel will go there. This is why we are saying that the place is shallow. There can be no good service where the draft is shallow.”
For Amiwero, Nigeria was losing a lot of cargoes to neighboring countries due to the shallow nature of its draft.
“Nigeria is now losing out because we have very strong competitors. If we are approving ports, we must approve ports that will accommodate bigger vessels. For now, we have a lot of ports that are idle and most of these ports are river ports. You must approve ports that will accommodate bigger vessels. Nigeria must understand what they are doing most of the time. Don’t put people who are not professionals.”
Conclusion
Besides the government giving approval for the concessioning of the port ,which was a step in the right direction towards ensuring efficiency and for profit reasons, it also needs to come up with policies and ensure the dredging of the ports to allow bigger vessels to come in, experts say.
Instead of approving seaport projects like Badagry Deep Seaport, more attention should be given to the already existing ones for proper optimization, they add.
Egbegbadia said shippers now had to spend a minimum of N500, 000 per 20-foot container from Onne port in Port-Harcourt to Warri in Delta State.
“SIFAX wants to try to do something but not much has happened. If anything reasonable is happening, I will tell you. As we speak, up till now, I still import from Onne port in Port Harcourt; we were importing from Lagos before. If I tell you how much we spend to move cargo by land from PH to Warri, you will marvel. What we pay is more than what it takes to carry the container from anywhere in the world to Port Harcourt. It is alarming; it is frightening. We spend a minimum of N600, 000 from PH to Warri for a 20-foot cpntainer. The truckers will tell you that they spend the same diesel and will ask you to bring two containers. If not, they will charge you nothing less than N500, 000.”
In his response, the Group Head, Corporate Communications, SIFAX Group, Mr Muyiwa Akande, said that channel was the firm’s greatest challenge with the project.
“We have been running it, but you know the challenge with that is that the channel is not deep enough for bigger vessels to ply. We are still waiting on the government to help with that. You know it is not for us to do that. We are concessionaires and we have been running it.”
He also said that poor channelisation was limiting the type of vessels that could call at the port.
“Until there is more channelization there and we get to the required depth, there are some kinds of vessels that cannot be able to call at that port. So, that is where we are with the port. We are just one of the operators there, so I cannot speak for the port. I can only limit myself to our own terminal and we have a challenge with the draft. We are praying that the Federal Government, through the NPA, will do something about that.
“So, it is just the draft that is our own major problem. We have not had bigger vessels calling there. On the patronage, you can get the desired patronage when the draft is not what it should be. You know that brings limitations to the type of vessel that can call at that port. Obviously, you know we have specifications on our operations there,” he concluded.
