15 April 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos — COTE d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Sao Tome have overtaken Nigeria to 4th position in the World Bank new global trade Logistics Performance Index, (LPI) for the year 2016.
The logistics performance (LPI) is the weighted average of the country scores on the six key dimensions which includes efficiency of the clearance process, Quality of trade and transport-related infrastructure, ease of arranging competitively priced shipments, Competence and quality of logistics services, Ability to track and trace consignments and timeliness of shipments in reaching destination within the scheduled or expected delivery time.
The scorecard allows comparisons with the world (with the option to display world’s best performer) and with the region or income group on the six indicators and the overall LPI index.
The World Bank ranking revealed that while Cote d’ Ivoire led the West African region with an average point of 2.6, as this is closely followed by Senegal and Sao Tome with 2.59 average point respectively logistics competence in West Africa.
In the report, while Nigeria has eight export documents, six import documents, Senegal has three import and four export documents as against zero import and export document for Cote d’ Ivoire.
On the number of export and import agencies, while Nigeria has eight and seven respectively, Senegal has three each for export and import as against two agencies each for Cote d’ Ivoire.
For declaration submitted and processed electronically, Cote d’ Ivoire recorded a 100 percent, just like the Senegalese counterpart, but Nigeria recorded a mere 63.64 percent.
For the time spent on physical examination of cargoes, it two days to carry out the process in Cote d’ Ivoire, while it also takes two days in Senegal and four days was recorded against Nigeria.
For cargo examination without physical process, it takes three days in Nigeria, two days in Cote d’ Ivoire and Senegal respectively.
Reacting to the development, Mr. Alban Igwe, Deputy National President of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, (CILT) said that the Nigerian has refused to see the potentials in the logistics industry and there lacks the vision and strategy to grow the industry.
He said that Logistics industry contributes 12 percent to global businesses adding that the benefit of a well-structured logistics industry will continue to elude Nigeria if it does not take action to redress the current situation.
Similarly, Dr. Zeb Ikokide, a seasoned logistics expert and Vice Chairman of the Port Facility Security Officers (PFSO) told Vanguard that the logistics industry lacks funding.
