Speaking for the first time since the raging debate among maritime stakeholders on the need for a commercial regulator for the ports, the Senior Staff Association of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council has said that the creation of a commercial regulator remains the solution to the anomalies in the Nigerian port system.
Speaking for the first time since the raging debate among maritime stakeholders on the need for a commercial regulator for the ports, the Senior Staff Association of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council has said that the creation of a commercial regulator remains the solution to the anomalies in the Nigerian port system.
The union made this assertion in reaction to insinuations by the president of the NPA Senior Staff Association, Comrade Jimoh Umar that there is no need for a commercial regulator for the ports and that government should rather focus on infrastructural development.
But in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week, President of the Shippers’ Council Senior Staff Association, Comrade Fadipe Moses argued that although provision of infrastructures is a prerequisite, but it is not mean that there is no need for a commercial regulator for the port.
He advised the Federal Government that the continued absence of a regulator in the industry will soon destroy the efforts of the government and the port reform exercise.
Fadipe stated unequivocally that until the government puts in place a mechanism for control of arbitrary port charges by shipping companies and terminal operators, the cost of goods and services will continue to soar high in Nigeria.
He particularly made case for the Shipper’s Council to take the role of a commercial regulator of the port because, according to him, this has already been provided for in the Act establishing the council.
“Nigerian Shippers’ Council is neither an operator nor a landlord, but simply an arbiter between service providers and consumer of shipping services”, he explained.
“Since the Act that established the Council has one of its functions as ‘to protect cargo interest and to prevent shippers from exploitation tendencies of the shipping service providers’, the government already has the appropriate agency for a commercial regulator that can drive the transport system” he pointed out.
Shipping Position Daily recalls that the NPA union president, Umar, had argued that government cannot dictate charges for the concessionaires since it’s not the one rendering the services, but in direct reaction to this, Fadipe countered that the Shippers’ Council as a regulator is not to fix prices, but to ensure charges are commensurate with those obtainable in other ports of the world.
Fadipe argued further that Shipper’s Council is present in 26 states and in all the geopolitical zones in the federation, and that “it has the personnel, it has the spread and understands the port industry, by using the council and the government will spend less”.
He said that the arbitrary charges by terminal operators has rendered Nigerian ports the most expensive port in the West African region even as he said that this is gradually crippling the Nigerian economy.
Fadipe alleged that the concessionaires have already breached the concession agreement they entered into with the Federal Government when taking over the terminal.
“The only clause in that agreement is that, for the first three years, you cannot review the pricing, and after the three years if you want to review it, you must go to the BPE, but the first year they started, not even up to 12 months, they breached that agreement and increased their charges”, he alleged.
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