The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) has urged the in-coming administration to prioritize the maritime industry by ensuring protection of local content.
The President General of Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN); Comrade Adewale Adeyanju stated this on Monday while briefing newsmen on the sideline of the Workers Day celebrations in Abuja.
Adeyanju lamented that the local content is not effective in the maritime industry, this is even as he said impunity has become the order of the day owing to the negligence of the outgoing administration
The President General frowned at the activities of some maritime operators who bring in expatriates to come and do the work that could be handled by Nigerians.
Speaking further, he noted that if not for the responsible transformed workers in the port that is managing the port on behalf of the federal government, the local content would not have even have a place in the sector.
He said: “Look at the issue of local content, what does the law of local content say? What Nigeria can do why are you bringing an expatriate to come and take over our job and this is what we are saying that the government must look into the law of local content, where some operators will bring in an accountant from another country, there are so many Nigerians that can do the job better than the foreigners.
“We are not saying the foreigners should not come and invest in our country but they should respect the law of the land. Impunity is always the order of the day in the maritime sector.
“You remember the issue of on-board security men and tally clerks that we have been on the matter for the past five to six years and nothing has been done.
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“Also the IOCs who believe in impunity, the minister will give directives and the IOCs will not obey the law, so this incoming administration must be visible in the maritime sector.
“The expectation is very high, the outgoing administration has done a lot of things in the lives of workers. We are using this medium to call on the coming administration that they should be more proactive and as well look into the welfare of the workers because the workers that are well enumerated will perform
“The workers have suffered a lot in the hands of outgoing government, so this coming administration should do better
“The outgoing administration was not visible enough in the port, giving so much authority to the employers of labour who have no regards for the workers in the maritime sector.
“For example, before now we used to have issues of accident victims in the port and throughout the year we have the ministry of labour interfering in the accident that happens in the port, but the way it is now the aspect of having a representative of Labour in the port is no longer there, the terminal operators have taken over responsibility of the judge and the jury”, he said.
When asked about the working condition of an average maritime worker ,he said “Well I can say it’s about 80 percent because a lot of transformation is taking place in the maritime sector, but we still see some of these foreigners taking the responsibility of Nigerians and we are not satisfied with such level of impunity where workers will be subjected to hardship onboard vessels and even at the terminals”.
Speaking earlier, the NLC President Com. Joe Ajaero also reiterate the need for the government to pay more than lips service to the welfare of workers.
He said “workers welfare is central to the achievement of socio economic justice which is key to national and global sustainability
“The realization that without crafting a more responsible and creative way of organising production and distribution of global resources; that we may be embarking upon a collective journey to doom; a collective race to the bottom; led to the call for a rethink of the existing Economic world order. This eventually led to the creation of platforms to foster a more inclusive world that would build a new globe that enthrones shared responsibilities and shared outcomes built on equity” he said.
Speaking on the state of the economy, the NLC President lamented that, “our nation has unfortunately become a country led by men and women whose delight seem to be in enacting policies that are detrimental to the progress of the nation.
“The economy is on auto pilot struggling on its own to survive while those entrusted to manage it kept throwing filth and injecting toxins into it. It is serially abused and has therefore become one of the most mismanaged economies in the world. All the key macro-economic variables are not promising with inflation at double digits, unemployment worsening and rising and at nearly 40% with youth unemployment very high at 65%;
“Exchange rate depreciating steeply while the debt stock continues to rise. The two key broad instruments for a successful management of any Economy as experts have pointed out remains having the right mix of Monetary Policies and Fiscal policies. These are supposed to work in sync to create an effective and a successful economic systems but to all intents and purposes, the reverse is the case in our system as we have witnessed terrifying discordance between the
managers of these two elements in our economy. An economy is a system with deep structural linkages which ought to work together at all times to drive growth, progress and development”, he said.
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