Terminal Operators Should Be Responsible For Holding Bays Provision, Not Shipping Lines- Expert

By Roland Ekama

 

 

President of the National Council of Managing Directors of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDNLCA), Mr. Lucky Amiwero, has argued that terminal operators should be held responsible for the provision of holding bays for empty containers .

 

 

Amiwero explained that it is not the duty of shipping companies but that of terminal operators, to provide container holding terminals, even as he noted that there is no law backing the 2006 ports Concession Agreement.

 

 

The NCMDLCA President who was speaking during a Port Industry Town Hall Meeting organized at the Rockview Hotel, GRA Apapa Lagos by  JournalNg, said any claim by anyone to article of concession is not only faulty but fraudulent and misleading.

 

He explained that those behind the port reforms and  concession allowed themselves to be used to deceive the nation about a purported port concession, whereas, behind the curtain, all the reform processes and documentations were based on lease agreement.

 

 

Amiwero took a swipe at those behind the 2006 reforms for mortgaging the future of Nigerians and the port economy by engaging in unhealthy and unethical memorandum of understanding, inimical to the well-being of the port system, in the immediate and long term.

 

He said, “We don’t have concession in this country, what we have is lease agreement, there is no law supporting concessions. What happened was that components that makes the port was not taken into consideration when the ports were leased.

 

“By the provisions of NPA Act, it has the right to enter into lease agreement for five years, and what we are having is lease agreements, not port concession. Even their documents say its lease agreement.

 

“You have a contract in a country where you have concession that is defined by laws. And by the WTO convention, when you concession a port you must have a law, and that law must provide for a commercial regulator.”

 

Amiwero lamented that the faulty 2006 port reforms is what have contributed largely to the ongoing operational problems of port congestion and rising port trade costs. He identified the loss of container bay, trucks parking, warehouses etc as a direct consequence of the unmindful 2006 lease agreement entered into with investors, by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).

 

He accused the federal government and NPA of turning ports into factories and industrial bases, a situation he said led gradually to the current congestion at the Lagos ports.

 

“You now have a situation where industries and factories have taken over port operational spaces.  They also sold away all container holding bays, trucks park and warehouses,  trading off the future of the nation in ports capability.”