Lekki Port Interview 2008
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Managing Director of Lekki Worldwide Investment Limited [LWIL], Tajudeen Disu, has said the state government is to commence an Environmental Impact Assessment [EIA] in the Lekki Free Trade Zone [LFTZ]. LWIL is engaged as a private company to promote and manage the development of the free trade zone.

The Lekki Free Trade Zone, which covers an area of about 16,500 hectares, was launched by the government in 2004 as part of its transformation programmes. The LFTZ is proposed to be split into oil and gas, logistics park, light and heavy industrial and manufacturing, media centre, urban and residential zones.

Congestion witnessed at the Lagos ports means any plan to shift the import/export business from the crowded Apapa port town will be a welcome one. This is exactly what the management of Lekki Port Enterprises have in the pipeline for the US$750m port to be located at the town of Lekki in Lagos.

Following is an interview with the Project Director in charge of the building of the new port, Peter Banham, on his company's plans for the port, when it is expected to come on stream, the benefit to the country, source of funding and many other issues.

Q: Who are you and what company do you represent?

A: I am Peter Banham, the project director of Lekki Port Enterprises. I have been charged with the responsibility of building the first privatised port in Nigeria. I have been in Nigeria a few weeks and already I am excited about the challenges and prospect and the success of my company.

Q: What will be the benefit of this project to the country?

A: Once this port is completed, it will employ directly up to 2,000 people, mainly from Nigeria. Another 62,000 people could be employed indirectly namely services providers, direct labour and services to the port as well. The immediate area will also benefit from capital training and extended trade. The port is going to change the shipping patterns of Nigeria and West Africa. We believe we can encourage bigger volumes by promoting Lekki as a transhipment hub to entice volumes that were never there in the first place, reverse the reputation of Nigeria and create a brand new port.

Q: What are the specific reason for the constitution of this port, what is the drive behind it?

A: From the company's perspective it is the desire and the necessity to support infrastructure on the zone. From the government point of view, we desire to relief the congestion in Apapa, in and others. The result of which lead the company to create a master plan to build the port, a port that can cater for some of the largest containerships in the world up to 8,000 TEU and Tanker vessels up to 160,000 tons, general cargo ships and other similar vessels.

Q: What is the land space of the proposed port and how much it will cost your company to bring the vision to reality?

A: The size that we are operating on is about 500ha partially on current land and some proposed from sea reclamation. As for the cost it is huge. You are spending a lot of money and investment for the long term. We believe the cost of this project will be about US$750 million. However, if we want to remain competitive, Lekke port Enterprises has to invest further in future equipment.

Q: Who will finance the project?

A: I can not reveal the direct location of the funds, but probably it will be both locally and internationally.

Q: How soon is this port going to come on stream?

A: It is a challenge in any port of the world, more so in Nigeria. We have to look at the logistics, we have to look at the location, we have to look at the result. We are very confident that we can start some form of construction towards the end of November 2008. From then onward, there will massive activities so that by January 2011 or there about, we expect the port to be constructed sufficiently when we can bring up the first shipment then the port will continue to develop during 2011. Extra cranes will arrive, extra equipment will arrive and I will say that by summer 2011 the port will be fully equipped, with all its equipment such as 8 x 30-35 RTCs container cranes.

We are also working with the Nigeria government to provide maritime support with their approval for brand new tug-boats, brand-new pilot-boats and Nigeria crew to operate them so we are looking at a fully furnished container port by summer 2011.

Q: You talked about tanker vessels. Do you intend to go into petroleum product supply from the port?

A: We are not building the terminal for petroleum products per se. We build the terminal to support the infrastructure on the free zone which we understand to be a component of gas related products. This does
not exclude our company from dong business with any company, tanker, etc. that want to invest in our project. For the moment we are just looking at the support of the free zone trade.

Q: What will be the benefit of the port compared to existing ports in the country?

A: Because we are able to start from scratch, we are not limited by surrounding city infrastructure like Apapa or Tin-can. The benefit is that there will be no congestion because there is an international high way linking the port. The pport will also be furnished with the latest state of the art technology and equipment. We expect that the container gate will be minutes, not hours. We expect that the customer will be treated fairly, honesty and in total transparency, resulting in a very fast customer clearance procedures.

I know it is the aim of the Nigeria customs service [NCS] to handle clearance within 48hrs. We believe that this will be the maximum time as if you look at world ports we could even offer a few hours of customs clearing of cargo.

The aim is to benefit Nigeria ports worldwide and build a new reputation for quality. To build a show-case port that Nigeria and Nigerians will be proud of. [VAN 01/05/08]