Reduction Of Working Hours Bane To Stevedoring Business Under Pandemic -Micura Boss

The Chief Executive Officer, Micura Service Limited ,Mr. Michael Orobosa Ubogu has decried the reduction of working period by stevedoring companies as bane in seaport operations due to the COVID19 pandemic.

Ubogu who disclosed this over the weekend in Lagos in an exclusive chat lamented that the “New Normal” as a result of the pandemic has affected port operations but maintained that the maritime company was able to survive in the face of global health crisis.

According to him, while other notable organisations were downsizing their workforce during the peak of the pandemic, his stevedoring firm was enable to engage more hands in furtherance to add value to port operations.

He reiterated that:”One of the major challenges has always been excuses and because we are living a new normal order, you cannot force people to do what they feel they don’t want to do.

“Because if you force them to come to work everyday and anything happened then the buck of the blame will fall back to you and a lot of people will say you prefer money over people’s health.

“Our working hours have reduced which also affected the business despite the peculiarity nature because at some point we have deadline to meet like monthly, weekly reports and all of that which were no longer there at that time.

“Those target were not met at some point which was a challenge to us,”he stated.

He also noted that some of the company’s clients also closed down their respective businesses due to pandemic pointing out that health implications and financial irregularities affected their operations.

However, Ubogu averred that “Parameters for employment gave us that edge to even employ more workers under the pandemic because we needed workers to cover up some scope of our operations during that period.”

 

While highlighting the gains of port concession, the Micura boss who also doubles as the National Vice President , South West, National Association of Stevedoring Companies (NASC) stressed that port concession has been a success to the maritime industry as reforms and efficient service delivery is the order of the day.

Speaking on some of the benefits of port concessions, he affirmed that vessel turn around time increased under the lease agreement adding that cargo vandalisation at the terminal reduced drastically with improved security system at the ports

Speaking further, he reiterated that the concessionaires have invested massively to ensure infrastructure development thus making competitive among the investors.

Micura was incubated in 2007 with a strong knack for maritime operations.

The company is the only certified Stevedoring Company with ISO90012015 by the Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON).

 

The company is also the first stevedoring company to have bagged an award from NIMASA as the 2018 as the best Stevedoring Company in Nigeria.

 

By Roland Ekama