• Senate Committee Bemoans Arbitrary Charges At Ports

Chairman, Senate Committee on Marine Transport;  Mrs Zainab Kure has said that the committee had been inundated with complaints of arbitrary charges in Nigerian ports.
Kure said this while on an oversight function visit to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) headquarters in Lagos.
She said that the reports the committee got were disturbing, adding that “there is no doubt that a commercial regulator is needed in the maritime industry.’’

Chairman, Senate Committee on Marine Transport;  Mrs Zainab Kure has said that the committee had been inundated with complaints of arbitrary charges in Nigerian ports.
Kure said this while on an oversight function visit to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) headquarters in Lagos.
She said that the reports the committee got were disturbing, adding that “there is no doubt that a commercial regulator is needed in the maritime industry.’’
Consequently, she disclosed that the Ports and Harbour Bill which had been before the National Assembly for the past five years, had passed through the first reading.
Kure said that the Bill would be going through the second reading soon.
She said that the committee had come to see what was done with the monies approved for the NPA for 2012.
“We are a responsible parliament and committee; therefore we have come to see what was done with the money approved for 2012 and to know why we should approve more money for 2013.
“We will interact with the management of NPA in the two days we will be here, and we want to challenge the management and staff of NPA that a harmonious relationship is important”. She said that by the New Year, the committee members would visit the Eastern ports to see what obtains there.
Responding to some of the questions that were posed by the Senators, the NPA Managing Director, Malam Habib Abdullahi said that externalities were responsible for Nigerian ports being proclaimed as expensive.
“The cost of operations in the Nigerian ports is affected by a lot of externalities, not only port operations.
“We can’t operate 24 hours because of the lack of power supply. It is expensive.
“Government policies also affect us,” Abdullahi said.
He said that new ports had become necessary because the present ports were overcrowded.
The managing director said that the business was also very competitive, adding that the customers could not be redirected to other ports as they had the discretion of choosing where they want to go.