Cost of moving cargo drops by 50% as NRC begins weekly haulage to Kaduna, Kano

Importers and businessmen based in the northern part of the country will be witnessing about 50 percent reduction in the cost of taking delivery of their consignment from Lagos Port Complex to Kaduna and Kano.

This is as the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), in partnership with APM Terminals Apapa and Inland Container Nigeria Limited (ICNL), has commenced weekly haulage of containers from Lagos to Kaduna and Kano, a service that was suspended 17 years ago due to poor infrastructure.

Findings have shown that NRC acquired four new locomotives that will be deployed to lift cargoes from Apapa Port to the north at the sum of N1 billion.

Therefore, importers who used to pay over N380,000 to convey a 40-footer container from Lagos by road to the north using truck can now pay about N170,000 to convey the same container by rail.

ICNL, which takes about 1,000 TEUs of containers every month to the north, can now take about 80 TEUs using rail. “This is better than nothing. And for the importer, it means that the person can now trade cheaper,” said Tony Iju Nwabunike, a director at ICNL.

However, according to him, for NRC to be able to continue with this current speed, it has to build on the achievement it is recording now by expanding the number of locomotives meant for this project.

Speaking at the official flag-off of the weekly container haulage in Lagos, Adeseyi Sijuwade, managing director of NRC, said the initiative involved taking 20×40-footer containers from APM Terminals to ICNL terminal in Kaduna and Kano.

“NRC is more than ready to contribute to the economic growth and development of the country. We are confident that with stronger railway involvement in the evacuation of imported cargoes, we will be able to reduce the impact of trucks on the roads,” he said.

To further this, NRC will also commence the haulage of sugar, salt, and other consumable products from Greenview Development Nigeria Limited (GDNL) for Dangote Nigeria Limited in collaboration with ConnectRail Limited.

Also, the corporation is concluding arrangement to commence the movement of Lafarge Cement in pallets using flat wagons (CBXs); haulage of automobile gasoline oil (AGO) for ConnectRail by next month; lifting of Total Petroleum; ballast movement for China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) from Sanusi to Apapa Local Government Area, and haulage of ballast from Apapa quays to the wagon assembly depot in Apapa for the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC).

Further findings show that it was the successful completion of the rehabilitation of the western rail line that made it possible for the corporation to introduce freight haulage in addition to its already growing passenger train services.

Tope Borishade, chairman of ICNL, urged NRC to work on increasing the number of trains on its fleet in order to grow the number of containers that can be moved by rail to the northern part of the country. By his estimate, NRC needs nothing less than 60 locomotives to be able to carry the 1,000 TEUs that the terminal does on monthly basis.

By: Uzoamaka Anagor