A maritime expert and Chairman of Nigerian Ports Consultative Council; Otunba Kunle Folarin has called on the Federal Government to address the high proliferation of jetties in the country, saying that there are existing 276 jetties in the country and that this is dangerous for the nation’s national security.
Shipping Position Daily recalls that the Federal Government had few years ago come up with a ban on midstream discharge of petroleum products and subsequently placed a ban on activities at some private jetties. Some of the existing private jetties in the country have also been accused of illegal activities ranging from loading of stolen petroleum products and importation of arms and ammunitions.
Otunba Folarin who was Chairman at a seminar organized by the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN) in Lagos last week, noted that monitoring of these jetties is under the purview of the Federal Ministry of Transportation which supervises the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA)
Folarin subsequently called for proper monitoring of the existing jetties.
Speaking, he said “There are over 276 jetties in Nigeria, this is a high proliferation of jetties, monitoring all these large areas of operation is what the Federal Ministry of Transport have to deal with, the NIWA and the NPA are under the ministry of transportation and it is very important that we must look at activities in these areas”
“As long as these jetties can access cargoes, either legal or illegal cargo, the fact remains that they have to be monitored”
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has said that it has registered not more than 80 of these jetties. The agency has also cleared that these jetties under its purview are being monitored daily by NPA officials to take records of their activities.
Speaking at the same function, NPA’s Assistant General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Planning, Western Ports, Mr. Innocent Gamboro Umar said that not all jetties in Nigeria are registered with the NPA. He corrected that some of the jetties are registered to NIWA while some, the owners is not known to the authority.
“What NPA has done now is that at every jetty where we have discharge, every legal jetty approved by the Nigerian Ports Authority, we have officers on ground to take inventory of what and what is discharged and the activities going on”
“But the problem we have is that most people do not know which jetty belongs to NPA and which jetty belongs to NIWA and which jetty we don’t know the owner”
“In the port Act, the limit of the Nigerian Ports Authority has been clearly defined, so it is not all the jetties that you see in Nigeria that belongs to the Nigerian Ports Authority, some of them belong to NIWA, we would need to see the kind of vessel that goes in there to be able to determine if the jetty belong to the NPA or not”
“We need to also see the kind of cargo being discharged there to be able to determine if it is an NPA jetty or not.
But the jetties approved by the Nigerian Ports Authority, they are not more than 80 something in number, we have staff going round these jetties to take record of their activities” he said.
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