Neighbouring Ports Benefiting From Nigeria’s Import Policy, Says Haastrup
There is crisis emanating from the attempt to regulate the industry, is there any possibility of settling out of court? WHO is a regulator? Is there an enabling law for anybody to act in the capacity of a regulator? We wanted to give peace a chance.
It is very clear, the Ports and Harbour bill will accommodate and spell out who should be the regulator and, as today, the ports and harbour bill is yet to be passed by the National Assembly.
So anybody acting in the capacity of regulator is there illegally. Unfortunately, they are claiming to be regulators, but they are not in the real sense of it, because there is no enabling law that has supported the appointment of any government agency or organisation to act as a regulator.
A regulator does not emerge by word of mouth. Even the people that say they are regulators are there illegally and I am saying it loud and clear. As far as we are concerned, the law of the land does not recognise them, and we port operators do not recognise shippers’ council as a regulator and that is where we stand and that’s why we were in court.
Are you saying the presidential proclamation and the process of gazetting it to give legal backing is illegal? It is illegal because Mr. president was misguided. I did not blame Mr. President because he is the man who carries so much load on his desk. All he had was just a piece of paper, there was nothing in writing.
Somebody wrote a memo to Mr. President and he said approved, it is illegal, Mr. president was misguided by this whole thing and I know, I do not blame him because he is a very busy person.
Maybe if we had the ear of Mr. president and we let him know that this decision was taken in error, he probably would have understood that he is contradicting the law that set up the port itself, the port Act.
There has to be the Port and Harbour bill that will spell out who exactly should act in the capacity of a regulator. But shippers’ council has been playing the role of regulator for many years, why not now? One of the reason Why I was against them initially is that it is a one sided organization.
Shippers should by their primary concern, their duty is to protect the interest of shippers of goods to Nigeria. How can such an organisation be also asked to come and regulate the port operators who they are actually always fighting? There is no way it can be balanced because it has a primary role of protecting the interest of shippers, I am not surprised by their disposition to us.
I had always known that this situation would arise., he does not have our support. How will you want the port to be regulated and who should carry out the regulation? NPA also has the same position at the port, NPA is the landlord and has been acting in the capacity of regulator, it is very clear.
Until the harbour bill is passed, NPA’s role and part of its duty is to regulate the port operators and they have been doing that effectively. It is these so-called illegal regulators that are causing problems in the sector, going to freight forwarders to incite them against us.
Do they know the implication of inciting freight forwarders against port operators? You are sending the wrong message to the international community because what they will simply say is that the port sector in Nigeria is not safe to do business, which would be counter productive the regulation they are trying to enforce.
The port industry is today very stable, we’ve added a lot of value, we’ve always done what needs to be done, and we’ve never done anything illegal, we’ve never collected illegal fee.
If there was a problem I will expect somebody will come and talk to us, not publish on the pages of newspapers and order us to go back to 2009 tariff. That is six years down the line? Where is it done anywhere in the world? The cost of running the port is not the same.
Labour, welfare, wages are not the same, we’ve been negotiating with labour on a biannual basis, so cost of doing business is not the same. Even cost of equipment. The essence of Port reform is to bring down cost of doing business, that is not the case here, why? Anybody saying cost of doing business has not reduced is not saying the obvious fact.
All you need to do is find out how much it costs to do business in other developed parts of the world. I am not talking about Republic of Benin. Don’t forget, Republic of Benin has no revenue sources, the only source they have is the port sector.
In fact, when Nigerian ports were concessioned it was a big blow to them, a big loss, I have always referred to it. Nigeria has increased tremendously from what it used to be. Dwell time of ship has reduced drastically, that shows the efficient nature of the port. I have always said that time is also of essence in this business.
When you bring in your ship, we can discharge your vessel very quickly. Dwell time for vessel has reduced from ten days to three days, that in essence is a reduction in cost. To us that is efficiency and that is reduction in cost.
Everyone is talking about rent imposed on containers and other types of cargo, I could give you a table, that shows that the cost in Nigeria is very cheap in terms of cargo rent in the port. There are a lot of things that also contribute to increase in cost; you are looking at the terminal operators, you need to look at other port users who are operating in the port system, I mean who looks at what the even freight forwarders are charging, we know it.
Nobody has regulated other people that are operating or doing business within the port system and making money, you look at the port operators alone, that is not enough. We are the one doing the real, core job, we are the one that incur expenses. Has government revenue been enhanced as a result of port concession? Government has realized that a buoyant alternative source of income for Nigeria is the maritime sector, because government knows that through the Nigerian Customs Service, and by extension, the ports.
It is when we bring the cargo that customs service will charge their duty, if we don’t do as much, it will reflect on the Nigerian customs service.
I don’t know of any other sector that has so many work force, from freight forwarders to shipping companies to Terminal operators, we’ engaged millions of people, this is a system that works no matter what they say. We know why they are against us and I don’t want to say it.
If the ports are so efficient, why are Nigerian bound cargoes still being diverted I have the figure of rice being imported in Nigeria through smuggling.
Rice is the only product being diverted and it is because of it prohibition in Nigeria. The policy of prohibition of rice is the cause, and it is only Nigerians that eat the long grain nice. All the other Africans don’t eat our kind of rice. So we know between 1.6 and 1.7 million tonnes of rice found its way back to Nigerian market and of course you know how much loss was incurred by that policy. The Federal Government needs to look at this critically and I believe it has adverse effect on government revenue. It is not because we are inefficient, it is purely because of government policy of banning and restricting imports. There is no other type of cargo that is going to Republic Of Benin. Go and carry out your research, how much tariff was imposed on automobiles 2006 and how much is it today, go and see the disparity, the wide increase, nobody talks about that.
Your members have been accused of anti-competitiveness, because of the tendency of rent seeking. We are flexible and you have a right to patronise APMT,or TICC or you come to ENL. Check our tarrif, we don’t charge the same thing, but off course, we cannot shoot ourselves in the foot, we cannot charge below our cost of doing business. We have to charge for us to be able to pay our bills and make a little income. People go into business to make money, we will not kill Nigerian people and we will never accept to kill people, I don’t know why they are saying that, you should also do your research to see who is telling the truth between them and me.
The love of this country and the love of this industry should be seen in our actions and attitude, let’s not destroy this Industry because this is one industry that has supported the Federal Government of Nigeria to make such huge revenue. Aside oil, tell me of any other sector. So, when you destroy it, then you don’t like this country.
If there are problems we can sit down and talk about it. Your members have been accused of deliberately putting bottleneck in the process of goods clearing, in order to attract more revenue; that they don’t want to pay for returned containers, you want to defend this? We have nothing to do with it, that’s shipping line. We charge rent, find out who else charges rent and I am obliged to charge rent, if I don’t charge rent, if I keep your container there for that space I cannot keep another container there and that is how all the developed ports of the world react.
You don’t encourage people to turn the port terminal to a warehouse because if you don’t impose some kind of penalty, some of them would keep these containers there until they have buyers for their goods. So long as THOSE containers are there, I cannot put another one there and it will affect the discharge of other ships that have berthed.
It will definitely affect it.
And I will not be able to quickly turn round vessel because the port is already congested. If the cost of business has gone down as claimed, why are products like rice being smuggled into Nigeria? Very simple, the diversions come as a result of government policies and that one will still happen to some categories of cargoes. Do you know because of this policy of rice, Republic of Benin has expanded the number of berths they had because they have long line of ships waiting to berth, and what are they? Majorly of them are carrying rice, fish.
Whether you like it or not, rice will always be smuggled, even if you ban it. Imported rice will still find their way into Nigerian market , because even the local rice is expensive.
All Federal Government ended up doing is making the pocket of some people buoyant. Nearly all the concessionaries went for already built terminals during port reforms. Why is it that none of you has gone into green field development? One is actually in Badagry, everybody cannot do BOT.
What we have done is upgraded this port, we cannot kill it, you cannot throw a bad child away, you can turn a bad child to a good child and that is what terminal operators have done.
You look at where they put thrash, you can clean it up and build a very beautiful house there. In our case we couldn’t build, but we can sandpaper the buildings, refurbish it and you know it is more complex when you have to refurbish something that had already been decayed.
But by and large I want to believe there will be greener field terminals that will come up in the future, I know a lot of people and state governments that are looking at that.
I know there are some state governments in the South-south that are also looking at it. I know in a couple of years we will have a lot of green port terminals in Nigeria.
The port terminals were concessioned for the emergence of hub port and to serve our neighbouring land-locked countries. Are you working towards that? Well, we wanted and we pray that Nigerian ports become a hub to service other West African Countries, but it is very difficult in the present mode.
Don’t forget that in those days, Federal Government used to give those countries some kind of discount. So if government really wants to help those neighbouring countries, there should be somebody who cushions the effect, someone who will bear the brunt and I think that is where we have a problem.
We are willing, if I must give them an appreciable discount putting into consideration that these countries are not as buoyant as Nigeria government too must be willing to part with some of those discounts. Since the port Terminals were concessioned, there have been relative peace as we have not heard of protest from dockworkers to disrupt port operations.
What is responsible for the peace in the ports? That is one of the gains of ports concessioning. There has been peace in the Nigerian ports and I must adduce that to the leadership of the maritime workers union.
We have a leadership that works, that loves Nigeria and the Nigerian ports , they are analytical in their approach, even when there are problems, they come to us and we talk about it. Nobody ever stop ships from coming into in any terminal, in those days you know. Nobody stop ships in Nigerian ports anymore and that is why we are having this influx of ship.
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1 Comments
Good for the other western African countries. Nigeria must do what is best for Nigeria. The import policy is the best policy implemented by the Jonathan administration.
We will review and take appropriate action.