There is palpable apprehension among maritime operators who occupy office spaces in the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) complex at the popular National Bus-Stop at Tin Can Island port, over alleged plan by the NPA and it's subsidiary, Seaview Properties Limited to concession the complex to a terminal operator (names withheld)
There is palpable apprehension among maritime operators who occupy office spaces in the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) complex at the popular National Bus-Stop at Tin Can Island port, over alleged plan by the NPA and it's subsidiary, Seaview Properties Limited to concession the complex to a terminal operator (names withheld)
?Even though the Managing Director of the Seaview Properties Limited; Mr. Phillipson Falade told Shipping PositionDaily via telephone last week that he is not aware of such plans, occupiers of the complex, which include members of and the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) and the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) confirmed the move to our correspondent, officials of ANLCA insisted that there are underground plans to concession the office building.
Secretary of the association; Mr. Davies Chuks K?anikwu told our correspondent last week that the association got wind of the fact that the NPA, Seaview Properties and the Bureau of Public Enterprises are at a final stage of concessioning the expansive property, which has provided office accommodation for licensed customs agents and others for decades.
The association recalled that there had been previous attempts to concession the property about 15 years ago, but that this was foiled by a court injunction which was obtained by some tenants of the complex.
?"W?e just moved into our secretariat here and we have our members that are close to people, we have our ears to the ground, if the facts are not correct, I would not be talking with you about it, quote me", he said authoritatively.
"We are waiting for Seaview Properties and the NPA to deny this, they tried it 15 years ago but there was a court injunction that the status quo must remain, some of the residents here had taken them to court, but they are now coming up again because the man is demised, but we are aware"
"We don't want to come in here one morning and see bulldozers destroying this place, they kept the deal secretly to themselves, forgetting that there are no secrets in this industry", the ANLCA scribe alleged.
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Kanikwu said that it would be difficult to quantify the damage that the sale of the building will cause to the face of the Nigerian maritime industry, especially at a time that the country is trying to be compliant with the ISPS Code regulation.
According to the association's chapter scribe, the office complex has served a lot in making sure that people do not roam about the port, even as he argued that if it is sold off, the development will lead to an implosion of crowd inside the port thereby promoting vices inimical to the ISPS Code?.
"Assuming that this building is not here, we have more than 2,500 operators who stay here in their offices on daily basis, they only go out, do their job and come back, if these 2,500 persons decide to come with their vehicles to the port area, since they (terminal operator) want to acquire this place, how can they accommodate people".
"This sale will cause an implosion and miscreants from outside will now join the port stakeholders because they will now be parking along the road"
"They made the mistake abinitio in the sale? of the trailer park, NPA also made a mistake in selling the facility in front of Tin Can Island Long Room to a shipping company; Socar Tallamis, if they had built office complex there, they would allocate it to those of us they will remove from here" he observed.
The ANLCA top man also observed that the concessioning of the space hitherto earmarked for trailer park at Tin Can was what has led to trucks littering the port access roads, he stressed that this is dangerous because it could be used as an avenue for insurgents attack.
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