Chief Executive Officer, Diamond Logistics Limited, Festus Mbisiogu, has revealed that the current floods rocking the nation are hampering the delivery of manufactured products to the desired destinations.
Festus said that this delay in delivery has increased the cost of logistics, stressing that it would be difficult for Nigeria’s economy to grow, if the situation persisted.
Speaking on Business Morning, a Channels TV programme, he said apart from being into logistics, he is also into manufacturing, saying: “some of the trucks that we sent to other parts of the country like Abuja, Kaduna, Jos has been on the road for more than one week, some three weeks because of this flooding and that hampers logistics. With this, it is too difficult for an economy like Nigeria to grow.”
He added that importers no longer consider it wise to send their cargoes to Nigerian ports because the total cost of clearing is not affordable, noting that Cotonou and other neigbouring ports are not only attractive but affordable.
His words: “The present administration has just woken up to their responsibilities by detecting some of these things that are happening in our waterways. These things have been dwelling for a very long time. There is this committee that was set up, and it is working tirelessly to ensure that they discover why we are having this theft. The indigenous ship owners complained two days ago that they alerted the nation of what was ahead of them. In the sense that Dangote Refineries is about to commence operation by the middle of next year and Dangote fertiliser is also coming on board.
Cabotage law was created to protect the indigenous ship owners in the country by giving them that access to dominate the maritime sector. Now, they are complaining that they don’t have the financial capacity to compete with the foreign ship owners.”
“There is this intervention fund from this financing firm from the government which is about 250 million dollars that the government proposed to give to these guys, but they have not had the access to the fund, which is why they are complaining that the government should look, that something is coming up next year. So, they are asking government to disburse this money to them for them to compete.
In fact, what they are doing is to alert the government that this is what is coming up, and if they do not take proactive measures, foreign ship owners will make the money and take it to their country. So, it is a welcome development and I pray that government will listen to their call. Their fear is that, if Dangote refineries take off next year, the fertilizer too is ongoing. There are a whole lot of activities in that maritime sector and with those activities; they won’t have enough fleet to compete with these foreign investors. So, they are telling government, if you don’t do anything, these guys will dominate and the essence of this law will be defeated.”
