Exploring Private Investments For Export/Imports Transformation

 By Oyeniyi Iwakun

During the recent stakeholders breakfast meeting on financing Inland Dry Ports (IDP) and Truck Transit Parks (TTP) organized by the Nigeria Shippers Council (NSC) and Federal Ministry of Transportation in Lagos, the Director General, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC,) Dr. Chidi Izuwa spoke exclusively with MMS Plus on the need for effective utilization of ICDs in the transformation of the transport sector while also highlighting the advantages accruable to concessioning of the airports and development of deep seaports in Nigeria.

How strategic is this programme to the development of the transport sector in Nigeria?

It is very strategic. We have constraints with our ports capacity. The easiest way to expand our ports capacity is to build dry ports. Even if we have all the money to build other deep seaports like we are planning, it would take another five years to build because of physical constraints and limitations. So, we need additional ports capacity and what happens everywhere else in the world is to build capacities. So what we need to do is to build dry ports so that there will be seamless transaction at the ports.

If you look at the video shown the other time, unlike Apapa, there is no customs clearance at the ports. The only thing that happens is vessels handling, and once the vessels land, containers are dropped and moved to the dry ports. So all the traffic in Apapa would move to the dry ports and then more industries will develop around the dry ports. So that’s how crucial and creative it is.

What I was just saying is how catartalytic good transport facilities can be made. If you look at Dubai by just building the Jebel Ali port and the free trade zone around it; they are making it a free port for everybody. That is what is exclusive for Dubai, and it is contributing about thirty percent (30%) to their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Imagine the transport sector contributing 30% to our GDP that will be a super and mighty Nigeria.

As we grow, our ports are constrained now and our cities have met our ports. What happens anywhere in the world is that when the cities meet the ports, you move it somewhere away. There were ports in London before but are no ports anymore. Just like if you have a   prison in Victoria Island and the city outgrows it, what do you do? you move it away. What happens is that people move ports away.

Moreso, the ships we have now are very deep ships and they require about eighteen (18) meters. What we have in Lagos ports here is about eleven (11) meters so it is even sub-optimal because the larger ships are able to transport things cheaper so there is multiplier benefit for everybody. It means that if we have other deep seaports, goods can be coming in cheaper. Who benefits from it? The consumers of course!

Most importantly, Nigeria can become a point of Transshipment, these ships can come and then the goods go to other countries and we can actually get revenues by providing those deep ports facilities.

Yes, I was appointed the Acting DG of ICRC subject to Senate confirmation and one of the things we have done is solving the problems of constraints posed to public private partnership (PPP) in Nigeria which is the Outline Business Case (OBC) and Full Business Case (FBC) fee by removing it. We are looking at ways to move things faster. Today, we gave three certificates out and that has never happened before so we do recognize that we need to accelerate. For us, we realize that we have an infrastructure emergency in Nigeria and like the president say, if we don’t kill corruption, it would kill us. So, if don’t kill our infrastructural deficits, it will kill us. It is an existential threat to our country and every Nigerian must wake up in the morning, thinking about nothing else but infrastructure. How do we rescue these infrastructures? It is the biggest challenge our country is facing from business to economy, for health and every other things. Infrastructure is our biggest challenge.

There is no lacuna, ICRC is there as an economic Regulator for the concession. Do you like the way the airports are as a person? You as a Nigerian, are you proud of that airport? Ask yourself that question. As we sit here today, Turkey has seventy seven (77) million people; Turkey is building third (3rd) Istanbul airport. The third Istanbul airport has six (6) runways and it has the capacity for two hundred (200) million passengers annually. They are building it with private investment funded by the private sector. Look at the state of our airports, I came back the other day from Rwanda, Nigerians who came in were very angry. They couldn’t understand why our airports are like this. Escalators don’t work, toilets are not clean. You see, we need to bring in investments, don’t forget that we have suffered heavily because of the revenue reduction. So the investment is not only on government to bring down money, there are twenty two (22) airports, only four are being concessioned. The other eighteen (18) airports will still be there for Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to run but you have to bring private investments to run these four so that whatever money government was spending on these airports would be brought to the remaining eighteen airports and there would be better impact. You are bringing private capital to do that for you. The investor will recover his money after a period of time the airport will revert back to the country. That’s what everybody is doing; go to India, Turkey and everywhere else in the world, that’s how they developed their airports so why should we be different? Government doesn’t have enough resources. The resources are not just there unless you want us to collapse as country. We have to do what others are doing to grow our economy. If not this demographic dividend we have can turn to a disaster. We need to provide jobs for our young people and it is the private capital that will provide jobs for them. If you go to Dubai, the Aviation contributes twenty percent (20%) to the GDP but it is less than one percent (1%) in Nigeria because of poor facilities. If you look at where we are geographically, Nigeria is like in the middle of the world but why do people go to Ghana? If we did it very well Nigeria could be the Aviation hub for West Africa. People in Ghana don’t need to run an international airport and even Gambia doesn’t. They could just be flying from here. That is what we need to do to bring in those private investors, in order to make Nigeria the Aviation hub of West Africa.