The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has expressed its readiness to disengage tally clerks and onboard security men and stop continuous payments to them. It also assured last week that it would pay the dockworkers their nine months arrears and welfare packages on or before December 15th 2015. In this interview, Shipping Position Daily's Dapo Olawuni asked the President of the Nigerian Association of Stevedoring Companies, Mr. Bolaji Sunmola about the contending issues as well as the challenges being faced by the stevedores and their dockworkers.
NPA has vowed to replace tally clerks with cargo surveyors, what is your reaction?
Stevedoring as service providers must remain inside the port, everyone knows all over the world that stevedoring operation is an integral part of maritime operations and it cannot be wished away. Our association, our work is as old and even older than Nigeria, since goods started coming into Nigerian ports, stevedoring operations have been in existence, whichever way they think we can gain capacity and increase our proficiency, we are ready, but not for them to just wish us away and replace us with other arms which are not relevant in this industry.
There is nothing like going electronic when it comes to cargo, basically the only electronic way you can go is on volume, cargoes have to be physically tallied, because we have a lot of stakeholders on a cargo, we have the shipowners who is not around and does not know which cargo is being carried on his vessel, we have the terminal operator who gets his money from how much cargo it handles, we have the NPA, the federal ministry of transport, finance, customs and so many others. So the physical tallying is the only way. Today they call it different names, but in the dock industry no matter the name you garnish it with, it all comes down to the docks and only dockworkers can operate in the docks.
What are the resolutions of your last meeting with the NPA?
The agenda was to determine whether tally clerks stay or not, and who should be responsible for the payments of the tally clerks. We have made our submissions and we had submissions from NIMASA and Shippers Council and NPA. Our position still remains that our payment is inbuilt and it is embedded in the dues being enjoyed by the NPA, it is not far-fetched and that is where we still stand. The dockworkers union categorically stated that the services of the onboard security and tally clerks are statutory, their dues is embedded in the cargo dues, it is now left for the four bodies- NIMASA, NPA, Shippers Council and the Nigerian Association of Stevedoring Contractors to sit down and harmonise and actually identify where these funds are and to retrieve it, if the terminal operators are charging for these services and they are not paying the workers for it, then it should be recovered, if the NPA on the other side are the ones getting this money and they are denying that they are not, then they should stop making noise about it. At the end of the day we would identify where funds are, and if it is not charged by anybody, then going by the agreement signed by the concessionaire that every three years it would be reviewed, it would be generated.
Why is NPA trying to stop taking responsibility for this payment?
Tally clerks and onboard security funds are recoverable meaning that they should be tariffed on the cargo, so NPA believes that they don't do that anymore and this is their argument, but what we are claiming is that there is a tariff heading for this money, it is just left for NPA to go into these headings and make the payments, whoever is collecting the money should pay. But the NPA has assured that they will pay us all our outstanding packages on or before the expiration of our contract on December 15th. Today, NPA has only paid us 40% of what is being owed us and we still have that 60% to go, which they have said they would process and pay before December.
Are you having same issues with the private companies?
The private companies using our service are not owing, we have no issues with them, it is only the ones that are being paid by the NPA that we have issues with.
What if they do not pay this money by December?
I am sure they will pay, I don't want to predict any negativity on this, we are having a minister coming onboard and it will be a different ball game altogether.
I hope it would not amount to strikes and shutting the port?
Strike is the last tool we can use, we don't want to disrupt the economy of this country, it is not a tool that we use to coerce, it is an unnecessary tool which we don't want to use, but it is because you are pushed to the wall and you have no other ways or means, somebody being owed nine months is not an easy thing, but I know NPA will not let this happen.
What if the contract is not renewed by December?
We are not in the position to take that, thank God our master of all, the Federal Ministry of Transport is there, they are listening and they know the contract will end in December, they would not want a gap and a decision will be taken, we are waiting for a pronouncement on that because there must not be a gap, if not we would still come back to the issue of what is happening in the port and the President would not really like to know that thousands of people's employment will be at stake and such a decision must be taken as quickly as possible.
Cargoes have been lost to Cotonou and other ports, how do we get them back?
This is a major decision by government policies, I am of the view that there is no amount of money you can reduce on charges that will encourage people to use your port, your service delivery and other important inputs must be there. For instance, if you are charging N10, the neighbouring countries are ready to reduce their’s to N5, they will do everything possible to ensure they hit us, so it is important that we put our acts together, Nigeria with over 170million population is a hub in Africa; no country should be able to contend with us in terms of shipping activities because we have the market and we should have the facility to support it. But it is only a government enabling policy that will make this happen, for instance, look at the roads surrounding our ports area, how do discharge cargo in such an environment effortlessly? These are issues that are important that can encourage swift cargo discharge and many other things that government needs to fix, and I wish the new minister of transport will quickly attend to for us to get going.
How is this affecting your operations?
It is affecting our operations definitely. Kudos to Otunba Kunle Folarin who has initiated a study into why cargoes are being diverted to Cotonou, the largest port in Nigeria now is in Cotonou, why is it so? We need to come up with proactive measures to arrest the situation, it is not just about rates, no matter how many times you reduce your rates, Cotonou port will match it because it is an industry for them and it can only be revenue loss for Nigeria, we can only ensure that we attract customers to Nigeria, it is going to be a robust kind of arrangement, it should not just be left to NPA alone, there must be honesty from all stakeholders, transparency, cargo delivery, roads functioning and security, these are issues that can get us our cargoes back.
MT Elixir the vessel that killed 8 Nigerians was allowed to sail out last week; do you think NIMASA took the right decision?
I don't want to castigate anyone but the fact remains that if you have an accident, it behoves on the authority in charge to investigate, not necessarily to reprimand but to know the cause of what happened so that it would not be repeated, and when there would be claims, such issues will be very importantly addressed and you will not punish the one that is supposed to be receiving justice. I am looking at it from the perspective of the law that you must investigate the cause of the accident for you to be able to give equity judgement in the situation we found ourselves, but if the ship is allowed to sail hastily, then that means something is wrong somewhere that must be addressed.
We heard that vessels are still discharging midstream without using Nigerian stevedores
NPA has waded into this and the Maritime Workers Union has also raised an alarm, the situation is being addressed, I know our security operatives are taking up the matter and they will not allow such reoccurrence in the future.
Some of the dockworkers have said they are not well kitted
It is true that we have had issues raised about some of them not being kitted well, but kitting is relative in terms of acceptance, some companies are doing it so well, yes we can say that there are some people among them giving the whole stevedores members a bad face, but they are just a minority, a few of them are not keeping up to the standard, but many are actually keeping up to the standard.
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