Deputy Director, Finance and Administration, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, Mr. Paul Ndibe (FCILT).
Will you say the logistic sector is well regulated in Nigeria?
It is a profession that is wide open, but do we have the regulation. Do we have the monitory mechanism? Do we have the licensing of the professionals in logistics? It is not proper for one to just wake up one day and say he is a logistics person and then open a company. There should be criteria and these are the challenges, so we must do the first thing first. Know who is coming into the logistics sector, trained and licensed then and they will have a beautiful network of logisticians. But, we are not doing that yet.
How much do you think government can be able generate from the transport sector?
It is an open ended, government can make a lot of money from transportation if only they set up the limit for that. Look at what is happening in the logistics performance in index only the concession of the ports has tried to return sanity to the maritime industry by licensing the Freight forwarders through the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria. Don’t you think similar things in the road sector will bring sanity, and once they do that, the will channel the revenue to government. And government will know what is expected from the sector and will also reinvest in the sector and put in place adequate infrastructure the sector needs to perform optimally.
Transportation is the catalyst for development, until we pay attention to the transportation we will not be able to grow as we expected.
What is your assessment of the development of Nigeria’s transportation sector?
As Nigeria is an emerging economy, the transport sector is also emerging, trying to follow best practice and also try to install institutional and legal framework to able us to deal with issues related to logistics and transport. More importantly as a developing nation we need infrastructure base to be able our transportation system to take off which obliviously we don’t have now.
What is your suggestion on development of the transport sector?
My suggestion is that the administration should continue on what was left on the ground by the previous administration. Also they need to do their own evaluation and draw up pattern of development they need to pursue. There are a lot of works to be done both in the maritime, aviation and road. And it is expected that they will do a thorough work, and employ good hands and good professionals.
You made mention of maritime and aviation sectors, in your opinion, do you think government should merge the two ministries to save cost?
It depends on the prospective of the government and if government is not getting a good result in the separate ministries, and they thought that they might merge them for better result. There is no problem because the critical thing is not the merging of the ministries but the output from these ministries. If you have a desk and the desk is manned by a professional, they are more likely to have result. We should first and foremost in term of government look at if there is a national transport policy in place by government and if there is national transport policy how robust is the policy. Then is the guide government will use either to invest or to reinvest or seek for partners to develop infrastructure. The bad news is that there is huge deficit of infrastructure in the transport sector in Nigeria. There is no regulation, no enforcement.
Federal Government has set up committee to fashion modalities for promotion of a national carrier in the aviation sector, what is your take on this?
At a point in time, we had a national carrier in the aviation industry called Nigeria Airways, also in the maritime, Nigerian National Shipping Line. But something went wrong and it is expect that government will look into what went wrong in order to draw experience from what went wrong. If we are routing for a national carrier, what is the content of the private sector. Kenya Airways has over 100 planes and do you know the worth, which airport in Nigeria will carry such planes and government can develop standard airports through private partnership. Will government be able to make the required huge investment in the envisaged airline? Government must look into that before inviting private investors who are ready to partner with the government. But, like I said early, you cannot do all that without the useful hand of professionals and without a national transport policy. There must be a national be a national transport policy and institutional frame work to which the government and the private sector will apply themselves.
Is it really necessary for the railway system to be revived in Nigeria?
There are a lot of advantages in rail sector, including bulk haulage and if there is a rail line connection to Tin Can port, Apapa, Lagos over 100 TEU containers can be taking at a ago by one train. If the rail system becomes s effective you will not see any trailer on the roads in Lagos. Just imagined the presence of 60 trailers coming to pick the 100 TEU containers from that port, when we are looking at the 48 hours transaction time at the port, the transport system must be efficient and we cannot be able to achieve that until we an effective rail system in place. You can check the time frame from ship to gate, and then imagined the mess. The port is not increasing in term of space and where will the 60 trailers park, of cause they will be on the road, also if we have a ship coming with petroleum products in one of the tank farms and they are offloaded for supply to the various of the fuel stations through what means? Of cause, it is through the roads, by tankers. But if we have rail line dedicated to the petroleum tank farms; they will use the route to distribute the products to their various deports in the country. So, in the nutshell, we have not integrated our transportation system to be able to meet our demand level and see how we can align them.
What are the achievements of the institute in the area of transportation development in the country?
To train people and certified them , also license them and partner with government and private sectors to develop the transportation system. We have been here since 1958, and we have been doing great work. And there is a bill in the National Assembly to give the institute the backing of law and it is already a chartered institute, so that the institute will be legally backed by law for its advisory role. And the institute is behind the development of transportation syllabus in schools. Although, there is no transportation policy, regulation and enforcement, until those things are in place, there will be a place for the institute to regulate the sector.