Our Reporter
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has urged the nation to avoid the mistakes of non-linkage of the nation’s seaports to rail and bad access roads while setting up Inland Dry Ports across the country.
Mr Hassan Bello, Executive Secretary, NSC, gave the advice at a two-day workshop for validation of the draft operational manual for Inland Dry Ports in Nigeria.
He said that the dry ports must be of international standard, pointing out that if they are slow and manually driven, they would not serve the purpose of establishing them.
“The Inland Dry Port project was conceived as part of Federal Government’s reform programme in the transport sector to decongest the seaports and bring shipping and port services closer to importers and exporters in the hinterland.
“Consequently, the Federal Executive Council granted approval for the establishment of Inland Dry Ports in March 2006 at six locations across the country, namely: Isiala-Ngwa in Abia State; Erunmu Ibadan in Oyo State; Heipang Jos in Plateau; Kano- Kano State; Funtua in Katsina State; and Maiduguri in Borno State.
“Also, the project is to be developed on Public Private Partnership using the Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) model,” he said.
Leave a Reply