By Joshua Yousouph
Minister of Transportation; Mr Rotimi Amaechi has flagged-off an exercise called “Operation Free The Ports’ Corridor”, which he said are to ensure sanity and reduction of illegal activities along the corridors of the Lagos ports.
Speaking at a press briefing on the activities of the enlarged Port Standing Task Team (PSTT) at the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) headquarters in Lagos on Thursday, the Minister, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr, Magdalene Ajani noted that the aim of the exercise is to achieve ease of doing business in the Nigerian ports and its corridors.
He noted that the next phase of the activities of the Task Team is to eliminate all iillegalities putting into cognisance the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of all the operating agencies in the port as contained in the Nigerian Port Process Manual (NPPM). He however called for the collaboration of all stakeholders and government agencies to achieve the desired results.
“The key thing is that we need to treat this challenge holistically and that holistic treatment is what we are trying to achieve. The aim of this is to achieve ease of doing business in Nigerian port and its corridor. It is expedient that every one of us here can achieve this and to be able to achieve this, we need to have a SOP and this SOP is conscripting everybody to follow it”, he said.
Explaining further, he said: “You put into cognizance the SOP of all the operating agencies in the port and that is why we are talking about the NPPM. The NPPM will bring everybody’s SOP into focus and we come together as a team and we begin to achieve results. This next stage we are going is to reduce or completely eliminate the illegalities at this point. We agree to remove all the illegal checkpoints. After this, sustainability will have its way. To be able to achieve this, we must all agree and we will”.
Speaking earlier in his welcome address, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), Mr Emmanuel Jime noted that the “Operation Free The Ports’ Corridor” exercise is going to be the third in the series of activities of the Task Team since its inception in March 2021. He however noted that the team is mindful of all legal and institutional frameworks guiding the operations of all agencies operating within the Corridors promising that the operations will be conducted without undermining the provisions of any agency’s SOP and or the Act.
While commending the Task Team for achieving great successes in its past operations, Jime appealed to all port actors to cooperate and ensure that the Ports Corridors are free for ease of movement.
“I can assure everybody on behalf of the task team that the operations will be conducted without undermining the provisions of any agency’s SOP and or the Act. The team is mindful of all legal and institutional frameworks guiding the operations of all agencies operating within the Corridors.
Justifying the activities of the Team, Jime added that: “However, we must come to terms with the fact that the government will not just come up with the idea of a task team just like that. It must be seeking to achieve an sim, which in this case is essential to rid the ports and Ports’ Corridors of inefficiencies and corrupt practices to enhance the ease-of-doing-business Therefore, I would like to appeal to everybody or groups that still nurse reservations to kindly see reasons and cooperate to ensure that the Ports Corridors are free for ease of movement.
“This exercise which is about to be flagged-off tagged “Operation Free the Ports’ Corridors” is fittingly named. Indeed, the Ports’ Corridors are not free; the traffic does not have a free flow, the shanties are not freeing spaces for a conducive business environment, and the unnecessary checkpoints obviously do not make for an atmosphere free of extortion and other forms of corrupt practices. Today marks the implementation of the third phase as we embark on sanitizing the Ports’ Corridors” Jime noted.
On his part, the National Coordinator of the PSTT, Mr Moses Fadipe noted that on vessels pilotage operations, the team has been able to reduce the time taken from anchorage to berth from an average of five hours to 90 minutes. He also added that a mechanism has been set up by the Team to address issues and complaints within four hours unlike before when it takes an average of seven days to solve such problems
He, however, commended the Customs Area Controllers (CACs) of the Apapa, TinCan Island Port and PTML for their cooperation in the Joint physical examination at the port terminals which according to him has contributed to seamless port operations.
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In his words: “Since our activities commenced, we keep deploying different strategies. Speaking on vessels pilotage operations, as part of the result of our activities, we have been able to reduce the time taken from anchorage to berth from five hours on average to 90 minutes. There is a clear departure of ships than what we had in the past. If there is aaninfraction and there are issues with a vessel and the government agencies unlike in the past when it usually takes an average of seven days to solve such a problem, we have put in place a mechanism that must not last more than one to four hours and if it goes beyond that, we are going to give a report.
“Statistically we’ve been able to have a success of incidents reduction from 266 in 2019 to 121 in 2020 and only 40 in 2021, when the task team took operation. As of today in 2022 we have only five. The issues of extortions and souvenirs have gone down drastically.
“However, despite all these proactive moves to clear the containers, but these cargoes, when they move out of the port, what becomes of them? From our surveillance, we have observed that from the Apapa port to Sifax Ijora, less than 2 kilometres, we have 26 checkpoints. We have it on record. And that’s was why we say we can’t continue like this and we have to introduce operation engaging all the officers of government in no particular order who are on that road to do their statutory function and all of us unanimously agreed that we will clean that port corridor. And that’s why we have all the stakeholders including the freight forwarders to say with one voice that this is a done deal.
I commend the over 180 personnel from various agencies who have always been supporting us. Let us continue to keep up the commitment and cooperation we have shared” Fadipe said.
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