In this interview with Assistant Editor; Oluyinka Onigbinde, the President of Maritime Branch of Senior Staff Association of Statutory Corporations and Governed Owned Companies (SSASCGOC); Comrade Akinola Bodunde speaks on labour related issues in the maritime industry. He also dwells on some issues in the NPA.
The Minister for Marine and Blue Economy was appointed some months ago. What does the association think about him? Is he performing or underperforming?
The appointment of a minister is the prerogative of the President of Nigeria. The new minister as far as I am concerned has visited us about three or four times promising that he will do this and that and we are still waiting. It is too early for us to judge or assess him because a lot of issues were on ground before he came in and these are not issues that we can settle overnight. He needs to take his time and look at all those things holistically, before making a decision. But we’ve met him and also seen him one or two times in the port. We have submitted a lot of challenges to him to see how the ports can run better and he promised to look into them. So we are still watching and we are waiting.
The port is a fast moving place, the structures are failing, but the Minister doesn’t seem to catch-up.
No, it is a new terrain for him. He is new in this area. That is why we said a Minister should be somebody who is conversant with that particular area, but as a politician, a former governor, you cannot weigh him side by side and say he is not an administrative officer. He has controlled a State before so automatically he should be able to control NPA. But we are looking at the technicality involved in the running of the organization itself which is NPA and that is why I will find it difficult to judge him for now. He has some people working with him. He has a bond he signed within NPA management on the performance. So we will wait. By time his tenure clocks in a year, we’ll be able to judge if he is doing well or he is not doing well. But for us now, it’s too early for me to judge him as a person based on this situation and circumstances surrounding the running of the port presently.
One of the key issues people thought the minister would have addressed is the issue of expired lease agreements with the terminal operators which are yet to be renewed. What is your stand on this?
It is not all the terminal operators. Majority of them came in 2006. Some of them are 20 years, while some are 15 years, while some are 10 years. I think there was a committee set up by the former minister, ( Rotimi Amaechi) to review the condition. And I know the committee is still working because there are a lot of issues they need to look at in the concession agreement, some are audited, some need to be changed and a lot other of issues. We have changed names. We are no longer Ministry of Transport. We are now Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy. It should reflect in their agreement.
So you have the opinion that some of the terminal operators should go?
Of course, some of them are not performing while some are performing. Because we know some of them that if you enter the terminal, a lot of infrastructures are in place. Go to PTML and Lekki, they are trying. If you go to SIFAX you will see some new equipment. But for some, the way they met the terminal is still the way they have been running it. People like that, the terminal should be given to others.
Can you be specific? Who are they?
I mention names, it will be as if I’m trying to run people down. I don’t want to do that. But we know them and they know themselves. By the time we want to take it up with the government, we’ll surely take it up with the government. There are some of them that don’t have any business running terminals. That is the truth.
A couple of weeks ago both SSASGOC and MWUN had a press conference, where you brought attention to a particular demand of the federal government about the 50 percent deduction from the revenue of NPA. Since then we haven’t heard anything. What is the latest?
Yes, a letter was sent to the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and we copied all the stakeholders, including the Minister of Finance, Minister of Budget and Planning, Minister of Labor and the Accountant General. We also copied the Senate President, the Chief of Staff and all of them but up till now, we have not had anything from them. We are waiting. By time is about a month and there is no reply from their side, we take the next line of action.
What is that next action going to be?
We would issue an ultimatum letter. Maybe by the time we shut the port they will listen to us. This is because that is the only language the government understands now. If you talk to them nobody will listen but maybe by the time you carry out one or two actions they will listen.
Beyond the agitation of the 50 percent issues, are there other issues presently?
Yes, it is just that people do not understand us. When we are challenging government about the issue of 50%, it’s not the money per say. It is the responsibility of the port and the Nigerian Port Authority. The ports are old infrastructural-wise and there are a lot of things we need to put in place. Other ports are threatening us with competition and infrastructure. If you are trying to work along with them, NPA is far behind. That is why we are saying they should give NPA money to be able to carry out some renovation, and improve the facilities for better performance. We are talking about serial dredging, the water is shallow. Ships from Lekki port cannot berth here in Apapa. Lekki is about 16.5 meters. We are just battling between 8 and 10 meters which is not too good for us. Dredging is capital intensive. It’s Dollars and by the time you are taking all these things from us and you are not looking at the port itself, we need to dredge. We have some third party agreement. All the money NPA makes don’t come to NPA.No! We are into towage. We need pilot cutters; we need boats to pilot the ships in. All these things are not what we can buy in naira, you buy in dollars and we know the dollar rate in Nigeria. Those are the responsibilities. Even the peace we are having in the Niger Delta area is because of the Corporate Social Responsibility being carried out by NPA management, which has reduced the tension in those areas. But by the time government denies NPA from these serious assignments or commitments, how do you expect NPA to perform?
Even the port is empty because of the exchange rate. How many people are importing? If you are bringing in a 40-feet container, the least duty is N50 million. What do you have inside the container that you want to sell that you can get that kind of money? The exchange rate is high, the custom duty is high or this thing are pushing people away from the ports.
That takes us to the attempt by the National Assembly to revisit the Port and Harbour Bill. The unions were against it, but it appears that you have kept quiet again.
No, it’s not that we kept quiet. The bill is still at the drafting level. We are following it at the National Assembly. It is only the Shippers’ Council Bill that passed through the second reading. But for ours, it has not and that is why we started the noise early. The Eighth Assembly rejected it totally, that is while they are trying to review it and that was why we made that noise. The area they are looking at and we are telling them not to go there, because that is the only duty purely by the 1956 Act, which established NPA. It is that piloting is purely the responsibility of Nigerian Port Authority. But any attempt to take that responsibility from us, NPA is finished. And that’s why we are saying, we agree with the concession of the port in 2006. Some of them are doing well, but there are other areas that we also see money in the port. But if you look at it generally, the responsibility of NPA is there. And the pilotage, which some of the so-called National Assembly people, with some of our retired officers are dragging, is to seize that aspect, because they believe with that, they are okay. It’s in dollars. It’s not because of the interests of Nigeria. We are not fighting for ourselves. We are fighting for the about 200 million Nigerians who have a stake there. The port plays a major role in the economic development of this country and they should be given the opportunity to run the port the way it needs to be run like other countries in the world. Benin Republic depends on Cotonou port; they don’t have any other thing. Singapore also does same. We have visited the whole place even with the management and government officials. Give the management of NPA the opportunity to run the port the way it should be and government will see the other side of it. They will generate more money. Even the customs you ask to generate N5 trillion is from the port. If the port is not functioning, will they generate money? Customs will not be able to generate and we also will not be able to generate. But if you put the port in order, the Customs and NPA will generate good money. The concessionaire will pay the dues.
Now that the Shippers’ Council bill has passed second reading, what is your take on it?
We have made a submission on that and I think very soon they are calling for Public hearing. In the Ministry of Marine and Blue economy, we have some overlapping duties and that’s just the truth. This is between the Nigerian Port Authority, NIMASA, Shippers’ Council and NIWA. There are a lot of duties that are overlapping which the minister, or the ministry itself, need to look into and streamline all these things. There are duties of NPA in line with the existing regulation. There are responsibilities to NIMASA. The same goes to Shippers’ Council and NIWA, because I can see some issues in NIWA’s bill on the jetties. Jetties that are on the riverside belong to NIWA, jetties along the ocean area are supposed to be the responsibility of NPA. And if you look at the law, NPA gives approval for jetties, but now some of all those agreements, we can find some of them in the NIWA Bill. If the bill is not properly looked at, it can bring about inter-agency rivalry?
If I may add to that, do you have issue with a bill that will make NPA submissive or responsible to an agency like Shippers’ Council being the port economic regulator?
No, we are all regulators. We are the landlord and we regulate all the terminals. The quay apron belongs to us (NPA). We maintain it. We maintain the dredging of the channels. Those are the responsibilities of NPA. We go beyond just regulating. We are into other areas. Even the common-user facilities is the responsibility of NPA to maintain. NIMASA also has a role. They are regulators including Shippers’ Council. We are all regulators.
As senior staff association, are there specific areas that are bordering you that you want the government should look at?
Yes, in the area of our facilities and infrastructure, NPA is down. We thank God that the federal government has approved (according to the minister) a loan for us to rehabilitate and to restructure the port. The minister announced it few weeks ago that $US800 million have been approved by the World Bank as a loan to NPA. I hope by the time we receive the money; the management will utilize it and let’s see how far that money can go. This is because we are talking about six ports, Tin Can and Apapa in Lagos, Warri, Onne, Port Harcourt and Calabar. In all these ports, some of them are about 50 years old. I think the newest is Tin Can port and it is about 40 years old. Onne is new, but old as well. When you look at the traffic, it is just like when you want to look at when Tin Can and Apapa were created, nobody envisaged this kind of volume. The ports are about 40, 50, 30 years old and you cannot compare the volume in the 1980s to the current volume now.
There is this agitation among the workers that the employment structure in NPA is lopsided in favour of the Senior Staff, and that is affecting productivity.
Yes. The issue about the employment is this. NPA do employ. But there is no staff you employ today that want to remain a staff, which is the major problem. Even the people that were employed in 2018 that came as a staff, some of them have finished their degree. They want to become an officer. They can’t stand on a point. This is because if you employ a clerk today on level 4, some of them will start running a part time programme. That means in the three years, they will be thinking of going to level 6. If you submit your ND, they will give you level 6. By the time you go for your HND, in the next three years again as a part-time student, you submit. That means in seven years as a staff, you become an officer and that is the major problem. It’s not that NPA is not employing. NPA is employing staff, but no staff wants to remain a staff. That is why you see the whole thing moving from the lower cadre to the senior staff. It’s not their making, it’s the system. Do you want to keep yourself idle? Everybody want to go to school and whenever you go to school, NPA will promote you. That is what is reducing the number of the junior staff. There is no junior staff you employ today that doesn’t want to become an officer. It’s a matter of time, they will cross. Even the people NPA employed last year, some of them have already registered now and some of them go for one professional examination or the other and whenever you pass, you are promoted. Some of them came in on level 7, and in less than 4 or 5 years, they will become officers. That is the major problem. It’s because the people we employ knows that it is better they move and they will do anything to make them move to senior staff. It is not anybody’s making. It is the system. Everybody wants to get to the peak of their career. Nobody wants to remain in one spot. That is the major problem.
Recently SSASGOC inaugurated executives at the Lekki Deep seaport. What is the motive behind this?
All the two ports that are privately-owned, we unionize them. Lekki should be the second privately owned port. This is because an injury to one is injury to all. We are in the same maritime sector. Some of the benefits we are deriving here, we don’t want to keep them for ourselves alone. Anybody that is working in the port should have the same allowance and the same treatment and that is why. We are even working on their condition of service. The MWUN was there and we went there as well because at the initial stage before we got there, Lekki port hire and fire. But since we joined them, their management cannot try it and that is why we are working on their condition of service. There are rules when you employ someone and there are rules when you want to terminate their employment as stated in the Labour Act. Since we have started there, things have been working well. The workers are happy that now they have a say. They have somebody they can run to if they have challenges. By the time we finish their condition of service, I think things will be better.
