Report: Moving goods from Apapa port 10 times costlier than Ghanaian, South African ports

A research carried out by SBM Intelligence has shown that it is 10 times costlier to move goods from the port in Apapa, Lagos than it is to move them from the ports in Ghana and South Africa.

The Apapa and Tincan Island ports, which is Nigeria’s busiest port terminal, has suffered severe traffic congestion for years and government efforts to resolve the problem has not yielded considerable results.

Data compiled by SBM Intelligence showed that local transport from the port in Lagos costs an estimated $2,055.

This is compared to $285 spent in moving goods from the Tema port in Ghana and $208 from the Durban port in South Africa.

The analysis shows that the cost of moving containers from the Apapa port within the local environ is 10 times the cost required in moving containers from the Tema port in Ghana and Durban port in South Africa.

According to the report, shipping charges from European countries to Apapa port costs $374 compared to $321 at Tema port in Ghana and $247 at Durban port in South Africa.

Comparing terminal charges at the three ports, it was discovered that charges at Apapa are double those paid at Durban ports and almost double those paid at Tema ports.

Terminal charges in Apapa are $457 compared to $284 in Tema, Ghana and $180 at the Durban port.

“SBM tracked shipments over a period of three months to three ports in Africa and came up with this average costs of first, shipping goods in from the EU,” the report read.

“The terminal charges that containers pay while they are in those ports, and the average cost of local transportation from the port to selected warehouses within the port cities.

“The costs for the Apapa Port in Lagos are by far the highest, five times higher than in Durban, South Africa, and three times higher than in Tema, Ghana.

“While each of the component parts of this dataset, shipping charges, terminal charges and local transport, are highest for Lagos, it is local transport, 10 times the cost in Lagos than in both Durban and Tema, that really makes Lagos an expensive place to do business in.”

The Manufacturing Association of Nigeria (MAN) recently said it is more expensive to transport goods from Lagos to Kano than to import from China.