In the last few weeks, there has been a resurgence of calls for the establishment of the National Transport Commission (NTC). Buoyed by the dummy that was sold to the minister of transport, Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman on the need to revisit the possibility of pushing for the NTC, some stakeholders have become emergency apostles of National Transport Commission. Some have even gone to the ridiculous extent of inviting the Nigerian Infrastructure Regulatory Commission to come over to the port and assume the status of a post-concession regulator.
There are about three levels of opinions; the first being that of bureaucrats from the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the second are those who (once again) pushed the argument for NTC into the front burners by using the Federal Ministry of Transport. The third leg is the silent voices of those who wish that the vacuum that is created by absence of a regulator should be filled by infrastructure regulatory commission.
Prior to the inauguration of the Dr Gbolahan Elias’ NTC committee, agitation for the NTC had virtually died. But, the manner in which events have been unfolding since the ministerial committee which curiously had a mandate of appraising all the agencies that are under the ministry of transport to determine which of them can assume the responsibilities of a transport commission. Even though, the committee has already submitted its report, the whole exercise of resurrecting the NTC elicits suspicion. The report, which does not indicate that those who are behind the renewed plot have lost out, however knocked off the possibility of any of the agencies transmuting into the NTC.
The recent visit by a BPE team where it’s the leader was reported to have once again broached the idea of the NTC also aided the rising curiosity and suspicion. The leader, Mr Allwell Ibeh (a director in the agency) was quoted as saying that the BPE has “a comprehensive and all- inclusive reform package which included the creation of the National Transport Commission to regulate the activities of terminal operators, adding that “it looked at the inter-modal transport system where it recommended that the ports should be linked with rail systems to ensure quick cargo transit from the port”.
There is certainly no doubt about the fact that the Nigerian Ports Authourity (NPA) requires a new law; especially because, even though the agency has witnessed transformations since the 1954 Port Act. It is on record that in between 1954, 1999 and now, NPA has transformed significantly; from a ‘small’ post-independence and an entirely government- owned agency to a concessioned organisation – now stripped of its pioneering responsibility of a master stevedore to a ‘landlord’.
Prior to becoming a landlord in 2006 and notwithstanding the fact that NPA had become a body corporate by virtue of its enabling Act, it was not until 1969 when the government of the now-independent Nigeria took over all private ports in the country and handed them over to NPA that the agency actually became the owner of all ports indeed and by law.
Between 1969 and 1999, NPA was decreed into becoming a public liability company (PLC) by the then military government, but in actual fact it was only a PLC on paper.
The amendment of 1999 did not achieve much in changing the status of the agency apart from providing it with the leeway for the private sector to come into port operations in the name of port concession.
Arising from the above is the fact that a post-concessioned port system requires both a technical regulator (which NPA has taken charge of) and a commercial regulator which the Independent Port Regulatory Commission will be.
Those who are canvassing the creation of a national transport commission should a pause and ask themselves if it will (in any way) benefit the maritime sector or the transport sector in general. The answer is NO, because the Nigerian transport system is so complex that it is (at different times) controlled by at least two different ministries and different agencies.
The Nigerian transport system is anything but intermodal; it has never been united, neither has it ever been inter-connected. How then can we (on account of having concessioned the ports) force the three modes of transport to ‘cohabit’ all in the name of having one regulator. In other climes; especially in Europe and America and some parts of Africa where a single regulatory agency exists for all modes of transportation, the principle of intermodalsim is well in place; hence it is convenient for all the modes to be independent and still be interconnected.
The fresh move for the NTC just when the National Assembly is almost done with the Port and Harbour bill is not only diversionary, but also smirks of the usual Nigerian way of taking one step forward and several steps backward.
The National Assembly should be encouraged to see the Port and Harbour bill through; at least within the current legislative calendar.
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