Stakeholders in the maritime industry have set a new agenda for the new board of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to be headed by Chief Akin Ricketts. The board was inaugurated last week by the minister of transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi.
The stakeholders, including the Nigerian Association of Master Mariners (NAMM) and the Shippers Association of Lagos State (SAL) who spoke during separate chats with Shipping Position Daily in Apapa last week, urged the new board to focus more on training and the review of the concession agreement.
The national president of NAMM, Captain Tajudeen Alao, charged the new board to provide infrastructures that will facilitate quick turnaround time for ships, evacuation of cargoes from the ports and security on the waterways.
Also speaking, a member of NAMM, Captain Adewale Ishola, urged the board to focus on training, especially in the marine aspect of the agency, adding that marine training is the life wire of NPA.
“NPA has functions and mandates, they (board) should follow the functions and mandates of the agency and make sure they deliver on the terms and requirements. That was what the minister said that they should not run a parallel government, they should just follow the mandate of the NPA and not do whatever they can”
Ishola however maintained that the new board should focus on more exposures in other to be up to date with the international best practices.
“NPA should do more training that we know they used to do, especially in the marine side, they should do more training on the marine department because that is the life wire of NPA, so they should do more training, especially the pilotage boards, Harbor masters and the entire marine sector. We need more training and more exposure to be up to date with the international best practices”, he said.
Also speaking, the president of SALS, Rev. Jonathan Nicol advised the new board to get the review of the concession agreement settled, he added that the agreement cannot hold everybody to ransom.
“The only major problem we have with NPA is for them to get the concession agreement reviewed, an agreement cannot hold the whole country to ransom. So we just want that agreement to be reviewed by all stakeholders, because it binds everybody to operational convenience; either you make profit or you lose. The current concession agreement is one-sided, the agency should try to get people together to review the document because it is the major thing; once the document is reviewed, a lot of things we be nice”, he stated.
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