President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday inaugurated the Inland Dry Port in Kaduna. The president also inaugurated new train coaches and locomotives at the Rigassa train station in Kaduna.
Speaking at the inauguration of the dry port, Buhari warned the Nigerian customs service and Port officials against frustrating business activities at Inland dry ports in the country.
He said customs and port officials must make the facilities work and not to frustrate business, commercial and industrial enterprises with unnecessary bureaucracy and delays, thereby defeating the objective of the whole exercise as it was in in the past. He said apart from the Kaduna Inland Dry Port, six other dry ports located in Ibadan, Aba, Kano, Jos, Funtua and Maiduguri, had been gazetted and were at various stages of completion. Buhari urged relevant stakeholders across the public and private sectors to utilise the facility optimally.
He noted that the hinterland business community had waited for too long for such facility with tremendous potentials to ease the way of doing international business for interior based importers and exporters.
Buhari said the dry ports, when completed, would reduce congestion and traffic gridlock at the sea port while time and cost of doing business would be reduced.
Buhari noted that the development of inland dry port is an important factor in our economic development efforts as Ports of origin for exports and ports of destination for imports.
He commended the initiative of Nigerian Shippers Council towards promoting the provision of modern transport infrastructural facilities and urge the concessionaires of the other six dry ports accelerating work on theirs.
Speaking earlier while inaugurating the new train coaches and locomotives at the Rigassa, Buhari said his administration was committed to linking all major commercial and production centres as well as state capitals with railway system to bring about rapid socio economic development.
(ThisDay)
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