Even as stakeholders in the nation’s maritime industry wait anxiously for the passage of the various maritime sector bills that are currently at various stages of passage at the two chambers of the National Assembly, there is an assurance that none of the bills will be abandoned.
The assurance was given last week by the chairman of House of Representatives committee on marine transport, Honourable Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi in an exclusive chat with Shipping Position Weekly.
According to him, the most important of the bills is the Port and Harbour bill, which is also the biggest bill that the House is considering. He recalled that the Port and Harbour is a marked departure from what the committee had envisaged adding that the bill is an entirely new work different from the plan of the committee to only amend the existing Nigerian Ports Authority Act.
He disclosed that bill would probably have been passed by the National Assembly were it not for the disagreement over certain clauses, especially as they relate to funding for the agency.
He confirmed however that not much could be done on the bill until lawmakers return from their recess which also coincides with plans for their party primaries.
Apart from the Port and Harbour bill, the law makers also have three other bills that are at different stages of legislative work. There is the Maritime Zone Bill, Chartered Institute of Shipping of Nigeria Bill and the Maritime Security Agency Bill.
Out of the three, only the Maritime Security Agency Bill has been passed by the lower chamber, the duo of Chartered Institute of Shipping of Nigeria Band the Maritime Zone Bill are yet to be treated. None of the four has even been attended to by the upper chamber, which attempted to discuss the Maritime security bill, but later stood it down.
But, Honourable Ugwuanyi told our correspondent last week that the Chartered Institute of Shipping of Nigeria Bill had once been listed on the order paper, but was stepped down because of more pressing national issues. “The CISN bill is a very straight forward bill”, he explained.
“I assure you that as soon as we resume from our recess that we will conclude work on those bill, the primaries will not disturb us, we are still awaiting the time-table for primaries from our parties”, he stated.
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