LAGOS - Capt Adamu Biu, Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), has said that private operators, who will manage the Kano , Jos and Isiala-Ngwa (Abia ) dry ports will move to site in December.
Biu, who disclosed this in Lagos said that the difficulties encountered in the process of perfecting some documents like the certificate of Occupancy (C of O) was responsible for the slow pace of the activities at the ports.
The Executive Secretary explained that work had reached 50 per cent completion stage at the dry port located in Ibadan , Oyo State and that the appreciable progress recorded was due to the fact some structures were already on ground before the formal groundbreaking ceremony of August 2008.
Biu said that it would take four to five months for the first dry port to come on stream and stated that the NSC had spent the last few months to get the drawings approved by the affected state governments.
He said that the concept of the port had changed from Build, Own and Transfer (BOT) to Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT), adding that the projects were capital intensive.
According to him, each of the concessionaires will spend nothing less than N2 billion for the provision of necessary facilities at the dry ports also known as inland container depots.
It will be recalled that the Federal Government had sometime ago approved the construction of dry ports in Jos, Kano , Ibadan and Isiala-Ngwa in Abia State .
It also approved the construction of Container Freight Stations (CFS) in Funtua, Katsina State and Maiduguri , Borno State .
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