Kaduna dry port has no business advantage to importers —SALS

Barely more than a year after President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the first Inland dry port in Nigeria, Kaduna Inland Dry Port (KIDP), the Shippers Association of Lagos State (SALS) has lamented that the high cost of transporting containers from Lagos ports to Kaduna has frustrated importers interest to patronise the KIDP.

SALS President, Reverend Jonathan Nicole, while speaking with newsmen in Lagos recently, noted that transfer of containers from Lagos port to Kaduna via road is quite expensive, thus not workable for importers.

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According to Nicole, “The Kaduna Dry Port has no business advantage to importers; hence shippers are not ready to run at a loss. To transfer containers from Lagos to Kaduna by road is expensive. Even the local cost at a time was N1,000,000 to a container; and that is not the end, because the importer will go there, perform all the normal processes and then ferry all his containers to his warehouse.

“When you look at all these factors, you will find out that these are some of the reasons importers are not ready to use the Kaduna Inland Dry Port. It is better for them to clear their containers from the port in Lagos and then ferry them to the hinterland.”

When contacted, the Managing Director of Inland Containers Nigeria Limited (ICNL), who also doubles as a Director in KIDP, Mr Ismail Yusuf, described the SALS’ allegations as untrue and baseless. In his words, “SALS allegations are not true. All what they said are blatant lies against KIDP,” Yusuf stated via text to our correspondent.