Customs, NPA Contest Ikorodu Terminal Management

*NPA: Management transfer against due process

*Customs claims 25 years control

*Sapid : “Ikorodu is a bad business”

One plan the immediate past Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority(NPA), Mallam Habib  Abdullahi  could not  implement  before his exit is the effective turnaround and recovery of  the Ikorodu Lighter Terminal (ILT) from the Nigeria Customs Service(NCS).

MMS plus gathered that Habib had seriously lamented about its  grave underutilization and so wanted to transform the terminal from a wasteful and dormant asset lying fallow with over- grown weeds under the control of NCS to a revenue generating terminal under the management of NPA.

Following this, he made inspection of the terminal with the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Alli(rtd), during which Habib called for the establishment of a tripartite committee which would involve NPA,NCS and the Federal Ministry of Transport.

While Habib noted that the committee would evolve into a united team to discuss and interface with stakeholders towards optimal engagement of the terminal, Alli preferred a technical committee that would come up with proposals or modalities on how to put the terminal to use.

They both emphasized the need for the dredging of the waterways for the patronage of the terminal by shippers.

Meanwhile, NCS had its separate plans to designate ILT as a dedicated export port to boost Nigeria’s non-oil export earnings and support excise companies as well as local manufacturers to improve their export volumes through the ILT.

However, several months after the joint inspection which led to another visit by the managing director of NPA to the corporate headquarters of NCS, no committee  was set up following some disagreements.

In his numerous consultations afterward, Habib alleged how the control of the terminal was handed over to NCS without proper documentation, as it was not gazetted as one of the concessioned terminals midwifed by the Bureau of Public Enterprise(BPE) in 2006, yet it is run as a full-fledged terminal by NCS under a management contract by Sapid Agencies Limited.

Although Habib did not disclose his exact plans for ILT, he was determined to recover the terminal but this pitched him against the NCS, whose Comptroller General, Col.  Alli (rtd) maintained that the terminal belongs to Customs.

It was learnt that Alli  told the NPA boss during a second meeting in Abuja, according to Customs sources,  that ILT was handed over to NCS by the Federal Government with the approval of the Federal Executive Council(FEC), but Habib still stuck to his grounds of improper procedures and documentations as well as ultimate recovery.

MMS plus further gathered that “the Federal Government gave the place(ILT) to Customs for 25 years through the FEC. Iam also aware that the CGC and the managing director of NPA met at Ikorodu, sometimes this year. But I don’t have details of their discussion and the transactions between NPA and Customs,” said ACG Charles Edike, Zonal Co-ordinator, Zone ‘ ‘A’ Customs, comprising  all the commands in the South –West states.

In their reaction, the management of Sapid Agencies Ltd., said “We provide technical support to the customs service as operator of the customs service overdue cargo  facility at the Ikorodu Lighter Terminal.

“Sapid agencies has since the appointment invested heavily in repairing and modernizing facilities at the Ikorodu terminal. We are also exploring the commercial viability and potentials of the terminal to increase its value to all stakeholders. The goal is to run it as a full-fledged lighter terminal that would provide loading and off-loading traffic alongside warehousing for importers and manufacturers, ”the Chairman, Sapid Holdings Limited, Mr. Bill Nkemdirim stated.

On how Sapid agencies runs the terminal, the General Manager, Operations, Mr. Francis Itsede told MMS plus, thus:   “We  only manage the terminal, it was not concessioned to Sapid. We are there because customs cannot operate the terminal on their own. They cannot provide equipment to keep the terminal running. We only manage the throughput, the entry and delivery of cargo with the rate NPA gave to us to charge through the customs.

“The only thing we pay to customs is escort fee. We provide security as part of our job and we pay them. We have our members of staff, who  we pay. We provide generator, cargo handling  plants and repair them from the money we generate. Note that most of the containers in Ikorodu are on auction or overtime cargo, so we only charge 25 percent of the auction, which is usually less than N75,000  per container. 85 percent of the containers in Ikorodu are on auction sales,” Francis explained.

The ILT was built in 1974 in the wake of the Cement Armada by NPA to serve as a depot for cargo offloaded midstream and for over-side discharge. It was however, handed over to the NCS in 2008 to stack all overtime cargoes abandoned at the western Ports in Lagos, as a result of the port congestion then to ease pressures on the western ports.

However, the terminal managers have lamented bitterly that they spend more than they make from the terminal, and would be willing to quit the terminal unless allowed to have a proper management contract and run a business model that will turnaround the terminal as a viable business.

A recent visit of our correspondent to ILT shows that the terminal is like a graveyard without activity especially against the background of the strangulating forex exchange policy that has affected import into the country adversely and the new policy of no auction of containers anymore  by the NCS. Before now this policy, every cargo that has stayed more than 90 days at the port without delivery is bound to be transferred to ILT, where it could be cleared or auctioned.