The Senior Staff Association of Communications, Transport and Corporations (SSACTAC) on Tuesday urged the Federal Government to stop further commercialization of the services of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).
Mr Adetunji Adesunkanmi, the President-General of SSACTAC, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Adesunkanmi said that further commercialization of the NPA would be counter -productive since the objectives of the first phase of the commercialization process had not been achieved.
The Senior Staff Association of Communications, Transport and Corporations (SSACTAC) on Tuesday urged the Federal Government to stop further commercialization of the services of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).
Mr Adetunji Adesunkanmi, the President-General of SSACTAC, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Adesunkanmi said that further commercialization of the NPA would be counter -productive since the objectives of the first phase of the commercialization process had not been achieved.
“In April, the union received a letter from the NPA inviting us and that the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) wanted to discuss the areas of the NPA that have not been commercialized.
“We were surprised because the concession arrangement already put in place has not yet yielded fruits.
“After concession, there should have been monitoring of the performance of the concessionaires by BPE which was not done.
“The initial objectives of the reform have yet to be met, but government is proposing further commercialization,’’ he said.
The SSACTAC President-General said that government’s reform had the objectives of speedy delivery of service, port decongestion and reduction in tariffs.
According to him, these objectives are far from being met, instead the situation is worsening at the ports with the concessionaires charging exorbitant tariffs.
Adesunkanmi said that the number of agencies at the ports was still on the high side.
He said that these were issues that could have been addressed if the BPE had done adequate monitoring and evaluation.
“In the ports today, we have about 13 agencies and they are contributing to delay in cargo clearance.
“Why have we not been able to maintain standards?
“Rather what we have seen is that the NPA dockyard used for dry docking ships is going to be turned into a training school.
“We reject this action; we cannot be in the system and allow this thing to happen.
“If the government continues this action, we, the workers of NPA and SSACTAC, would work to forestall the move,’’ he said
Adesunkanmi said that about 11,000 workers of the NPA had been thrown back into the labour market due to the commercialization.
He said further commercialization would mean more workers would be rendered redundant.
Discussion about this post